The Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation and the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association yesterday released separate polls on Taiwanese satisfaction with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) governance over the past six years.
About 63.9 percent of respondents said that coexisting with COVID-19 is a suitable policy for Taiwan, 11.5 percent preferred the “zero COVID” model adopted by the Shanghai City Government and 24.6 percent declined to provide an answer, the association’s poll showed.
The poll also showed that 48.3 percent of respondents were confident that Tsai is handling cross-strait relations appropriately, while 36.1 percent said that they lacked confidence in her approach.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan City Government
Overall, the poll showed that 49.2 percent of respondents were satisfied with the governance of the Tsai administration, while 29.1 percent expressed dissatisfaction.
The association’s poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewing 1,073 adults in telephone interviews after calling randomized landline numbers.
It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
The association’s poll was weighted based on gender, age and region.
Taiwan Thinktank member Tung Li-wen (董立文) said that she was impressed by the Tsai administration’s ability to maintain high satisfaction ratings, even amid unprecedented political, economic and military turmoil.
The foundation’s poll separately showed that 26.8 percent of respondents were “extremely satisfied” with the performance of Tsai’s administration, 16.5 were “satisfied,” 23.1 percent were “ambivalent,” 13.1 percent were “moderately dissatisfied” and 16.2 percent were “extremely dissatisfied.”
In descending order, 56.7 percent were satisfied with the performance of the administration’s foreign relations, 51.1 percent were satisfied with national defense, 49.5 percent were satisfied with cross-strait policies, 47.3 percent were satisfied with economic performance, 42.4 percent were satisfied that Taiwan had developed its own COVID-19 vaccine and 37.3 percent were satisfied with the administration’s judiciary reforms, the foundation’s poll showed.
Measuring dissatisfaction, 48.5 percent cited Taiwan’s vaccine development, 44.8 percent said economic performance, 43.9 percent said judicial reforms, 39.2 percent said cross-strait policies, 35 percent said national defense policies and 33.9 percent said foreign relations, it showed.
The foundation said that 46 percent supported Tsai’s handling of national affairs, while 40 percent were unhappy in that regard.
The narrow difference of 6.7 percentage points between the national affairs numbers should be a warning for the administration, the foundation said.
The foundation’s poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, interviewing people aged 20 or older via telephone.
It obtained 1,077 valid responses and has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times