More than 80 percent of respondents to a poll said they believe Taiwanese should be responsible for their country’s defense, a foundation said yesterday.
Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said he conducted the survey out of concern over national security issues, particularly in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The foundation’s survey asked respondents to comment on the nation’s defense training, battle readiness and education about national defense.
Photo: Chang Wei-chen, Taipei Times
Among those who responded to the survey, 83.3 percent said that Taiwanese must be ready to defend the nation on their own, and 85.8 percent said that nationwide education about national defense should better emphasize the importance of maintaining national security.
“This year has been a turbulent one. I wanted to see whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had served to enlighten the public of defense issues,” Huang said.
The survey also found that 76.3 percent of respondents agreed with the need to introduce national-defense education into public schools and communities, 75.4 percent said that the public should receive defense and survival skills training, and 75.2 percent said that Taiwanese should be better trained in disaster-response measures.
A further 62.3 percent said the public needs better training in media literacy to identify false information, and 53.4 percent said the public should be trained in basic combat skills.
Foundation director Feng Ching-huang (馮清皇) said that current defense education in schools — which focuses on performance-drills competition, target training, and exercises held during summer and winter breaks — is inadequate.
The results of the survey showed that the majority of the public agreed with his assessment, he said.
Foundation poll committee convenor Kuo Sheng-yu (郭生玉) said only 29.7 percent of respondents knew there were defense education programs in schools, which should serve as a warning sign.
The poll finding that only 41.4 percent of Taiwanese would be willing to sacrifice themselves for national defense was also a sign that the public lacks awareness of the significance of defense. He suggested that the government could work with civic organizations to raise awareness of defense issues.
Taiwan Association for Strategic Simulation secretary-general Chang Jung-feng (張榮豐) expressed concern over the survey’s finding that 70.5 percent of respondents believed the US would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of an attack by China.
“Peace does not come cheap. Responsibility for one’s own defense should not be simply a slogan,” he said. “Taiwanese must wake up. Participation in national defense doesn’t necessarily mean carrying a rifle into battle. Everyone can contribute according to their strengths.”
The poll, which was conducted from June 18 to 21, gathered 1,070 valid samples from respondents 20 and older. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS