President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) approval rating has dropped by 25.2 percentage points from May to a new low of 44.7 percent this month, while only 34.6 percent of people think Premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) Cabinet is competent, according to a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.
Approval of Tsai’s administration and policies reached 44.7 percent, down from 52.3 percent last month and 69.9 percent in May, while 33.7 percent of respondents said they disapprove of her performance, an increase from 8.8 percent in May, the poll showed.
“Tsai’s reputation is falling like an avalanche, which is very rare,” foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said, adding that it was the first time Tsai had an approval rating of below 50 percent in the foundation’s polls.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The survey showed that 34.6 percent of respondents said Lin’s Cabinet is capable of solving problems, compared with 40.9 percent who said it is not, while 18.2 percent were undecided.
“Tsai’s and Lin’s approval ratings are closely related, but the gap between the two has widened. It appears that Lin’s Cabinet might be a major drag on Tsai’s rating,” You said.
The poll also gauged public opinion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with the majority of respondents saying they dislike the party.
The survey found that 38.7 percent of respondents think the CCP tolerates corruption, while 26.5 percent said it is fighting corruption.
Most respondents (59.5 percent) said the CCP represents the interest of wealthy and powerful people, while only 18.3 percent said it represents the general public.
The disparity grew when asked if the CCP is trustworthy, with only 15.8 percent saying it is, while 68.4 percent said it is not trustworthy.
The CCP is essentially an organization that exploits society, and it only penalizes corrupt officials who threaten the party’s exploitative system, exiled Chinese dissident Wuer Kaixi said, adding that he was surprised by the number of Taiwanese who believe the CCP is against corruption.
The high number of people who approve of the CCP might be due to a psychological mechanism that transfers long-term helplessness over China’s suppression of Taiwan to a sense of acceptance, which rationalizes the CCP’s actions, Wuer Kaixi said.
“In order to deal with long-term hopelessness, some Taiwanese have convinced themselves that the CCP is not that bad,” he said. “As Taiwan is a business-minded society, it is understandable that many might praise the CCP’s efficiency, but far fewer people would still approve of it if they knew how the CCP sacrifices human rights for efficiency.”
The poll showed that people aged 25 to 34 had the highest confidence in the CCP, with 23.1 percent of respondents in the group saying it is trustworthy, National Sun Yat-sen University politics professor Liao Da-chi (廖達琪) said, adding that the results reflect a global phenomenon of people turning to figures they perceive as powerful, such as US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrige Duterte.
In regards to independence, 49.2 percent of respondents were in support and 17.8 percent were in favor of unification, while 20.5 percent supported maintaining the “status quo.”
Among supporters of the “status quo,” 32.2 percent chose Taiwanese independence when forced to choose between independence or unification, while 27.9 percent chose unification and 38.9 percent insisted on the “status quo.”
The survey found that only 8 percent of respondents were in favor of the “status quo” being permanently maintained, with 56 percent supporting independence and 23.6 percent in favor of unification with China.
“That debunks the myth that the majority of Taiwanese support the ‘status quo,’” You said.
The poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week, collected 1,081 valid samples and has a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
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