The majority of respondents in a survey about Taiwan-China relations support maintaining the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait, the Mainland Affairs Council said on Thursday.
In a poll of 1,072 people, 84.9 percent said they supported maintaining the “status quo” between Taiwan and China, while 6.8 percent said that Taiwan should declare independence as soon as possible and 1.6 percent said they supported unification with China.
Asked about President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) comments about cross-strait relations in her Double Ten National Day address, 77.1 percent said they supported her views, while 12.3 percent were against them.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
In the speech, Tsai laid out “four commitments”: that the nation will adhere to a free and democratic constitutional system; that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other; that the nation will resist annexation or encroachment upon its sovereignty; and that the nation’s future must be decided in accordance with the will of Taiwanese.
The survey, commissioned by the council and conducted by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, also showed that 77.1 percent of respondents said they felt that Beijing was “unfriendly” toward Taipei, while 9 percent held the opposite view.
On Beijing’s attitude toward Taiwanese, 57.9 percent said it was “unfriendly,” while 29.1 percent said it was “friendly,” the council said.
The poll showed that public opinion remains strongly against Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula, with 85.6 percent opposing it and 5.4 percent agreeing with it.
The “one country, two systems” scheme refers to a principle formulated by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) , in which regions such as Hong Kong and Macau could be part of China while retaining their own economic and administrative systems.
The poll, conducted from Nov. 10-14, had a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
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