A survey commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council showed that more than 80 percent of respondents do not accept Beijing’s “one country, two systems” proposal for Taiwan, and nearly 90 of the respondents said that the nation’s future should be decided by 23 million Taiwanese.
The council regularly conducts polls to gauge opinions on cross-strait affairs.
The four-day survey, administered by Ipsos Ltd, was conducted after the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) earlier this month and Xi’s meeting with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) last month.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
About 79.7 percent of the respondents did not agree with China’s characterization of Taiwan as a local government or a special administrative district, rather than the Republic of China.
About 87 percent disagreed with the statement that Taiwan should accept China’s “one country, two systems” proposal and “peaceful unification,” even at the cost of losing freedom and democracy under Chinese Communist Party’s rule.
About 82 percent said they disapproved of Beijing’s obstruction of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini last month.
Nearly 86 percent agreed that maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” is the most important thing to Taiwan at the moment, and 88 percent agreed that the nation’s future should be decided by its 23 million people.
However, only 47.4 percent said that it is China that disrupts the peace across the Taiwan Strait, while 33.3 percent said Taiwan and China are disrupting cross-strait peace.
Although 72.6 percent agreed that the Republic of China and People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, 18.5 percent disagreed.
While 71.9 percent expressed support for increasing defense funding, 20.9 percent said they did not support an increase in defense expenditures.
This survey collected 1,073 valid samples, with a sampling error of 2.99 percent.
Meanwhile, the council yesterday again urged members of religious group I-Kuan Tao not to travel to China, after 17 members of the group had been arrested or detained since January 2024.
It includes three who were detained in two separate incidents in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, whose plights were disclosed by Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation on Friday last week.
The foundation also warned the group members to avoid travel to China.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) commented on the travel warning issued by the Taiwanese cross-strait authorities in a news conference yesterday morning, saying that it is “malicious hype and rumor” used to smear China, create a chilling effect, undermining cross-strait exchanges and escalating confrontation and antagonism between the two sides of the strait.
MAC spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) displayed pages printed from the China Anti-Cult Network — a Web site operated by China’s State Council — at a news conference in Taipei, saying that the site clearly identifies I Kuan Tao as a cult.
“The office does not have to deny that it has been treating the religious group as a cult. Instead of trying to cover that with some vague statements, the office should make it clear that the group’s members should not go to China,” Liang said.
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