Poll finds 50% of Taiwanese support Independence
DHARAMSALA, 18 Aug: As many as half of the Taiwanese support independence, the Taipei Times reported citing a poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.
According to the results of a poll released by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation on Tuesday, fifty per cent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 per cent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 per cent supported unification, while 12.1 per cent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the report added.
Michael You, the foundation chairman has stated in the report that supports for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power.
As 25.7 per cent of Taiwanese supported maintaining the “status quo” in the poll, the foundation chairman has said that “insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that could severely mislead the international community”.
Additionally, the poll also found that compared to last month, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s support rating has fallen by 7 percentage points to 45.7 per cent.
Besides, half of the respondents hold a favourable view of the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, while 24 per cent did not with another 23 per cent of respondents having no opinion over the matter.
Amid constant incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s Airspace which have become more severe lately, about 36 per cent of Taiwanese have said that an invasion was highly improbable, with 26.7 per cent believing there was some possibility, 16.7 per cent saying it was impossible, and 12.3 per cent of the view that it was highly possible with 8.4 per cent having no opinion.
The poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week has reportedly polled people aged 20 or older by telephone.
“It collected 1,035 valid samples, with a confidence level of 95 per cent and a margin of error of 3.05 percentage points”, the report concluded.
Beijing claims self-ruled and democratic Taiwan as its own and views it as a wayward province to be reunified with China by force if necessary.
Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops fled to the island after losing China’s civil war to Mao’s Communist Party.
