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.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS