A record-high 76.6 percent of the Taiwanese public sees China as unfriendly to the Taiwanese government, as well as Taiwanese (61.5 percent), the highest levels in 15 years, a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) survey released on Thursday showed.
Taiwan attended the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decisionmaking body, as an observer from 2009 to 2016, but has since been denied entry due to pressure from Beijing.
About 90 percent of respondents said that they were against China keeping Taiwan from joining the WHO amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as that directly affects the Taiwanese public’s right to health.
More than 70 percent felt that the government should exhort Beijing to end its political machinations against Taiwan at the WHO, the survey found.
On the issue of evacuating Taiwanese stranded in China’s Hubei Province, about 73 percent supported the government prioritizing disadvantaged people and disease prevention measures, it showed.
Since last year, the percentage of the Taiwanese public opposed to China’s “one country, two systems” framework has increased from 75.4 percent to 90 percent, the survey found.
Beijing’s continued suppression of Taiwan on the international stage has only led to heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait, MAC Deputy Minister Chen Ming-chi (陳明祺) said.
Chen called on the Chinese Communist Party to recognize that its political claims are not realistic and to rationally weigh public opinion in Taiwan when developing its cross-strait policies.
The council commissioned the National Chengchi University Election Study Center for the poll, which was conducted via telephone interviews from Thursday last week to Monday. It collected 1,089 valid samples and has a margin of error of 2.97 percentage points.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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