Sixty-three per cent of Taiwan people are in favor of signing a peace treaty with mainland China under which Beijing promises not to invade Taiwan and Taiwan promises not to declare independence for the next 50 years, a new survey published Thursday showed...Half of Taiwanese think the US is going to help Taiwan. Dream on! And at the same time, a substantial majority thinks that Taiwan can't defend itself. Moreover, nearly half also think that Taiwan shouldn't defend itself if attacked after it declares independence. It sounds to me like they haven't clearly thought out the consequences of their actions. And in fact, a full third want to make decisions later. I guess that means they hope the problem will go away eventually. I hope they're right. In any case, over two thirds are opposed to independence at this time.
51 per cent feel cross-strait relations have been poor over the past year, compared with 33 per cent who have no opinion, and 15 per cent who said that relations are good. Sixty-four per cent believe that there won't be a war in the next three years, compared with 11 per cent who said war would break out.
If Taiwan creates a new constitution in 2006, 38 per cent said war would not happen, compared with 28 per cent who said there would be war.
However, if Taiwan announces independence, 58 per cent believed that there would be a war, compared with 21 per cent who said that this would not be the case.
Fifty-one per cent of those polled also said that if cross-strait war erupts, the United States would come to Taiwan's aid, compared with 23 per cent who think that the [U.S.] won't make such a move. If the U.S. won't assist Taiwan, 59 per cent said that Taiwan is incapable of defending itself, while 26 per cent disagreed.
The survey also found that if Taiwan announced independence through democractic process, and mainland China decided to attack Taiwan, 47 per cent think that Taiwan shouldn't fight with mainland China to preserve its democracy and independence, compared with 34 per cent who are in favor of a fight.
Thirty-four per cent favored the status quo, advocating making decisions later, compared with 24 per cent who are in favor of maintaining the status quo forever, 14 per cent who are in favor of maintaining the status quo and moving toward independence, 11 per cent who are in favor of maintaining the status quo and moving toward unification. The ratio of those who favor "unification as soon as possible, " and "independence as soon as possible" account for less than 10 per cent, respectively.
Wednesday, July 28
Take that, DPP!
According to a Business Weekly poll
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
"In any case, over two thirds are opposed to independence at this time."
Don't muck up words. Independence is different than Declaration of Independence. I think most Taiwanese would rather not declare independence, while they would assert that Taiwan is already independent.
There were some polls in the Financial Times in March right before the elections. One question was "would you rather Taiwan be part of the United States or China." I wasn't surprised by the answer.
My point was that if Chen declared independence (as it seems to me he's dying to do), he'd be acting in opposition to his people. Anyway, no matter what the Taiwanese think, it's pretty clear to me the commies would react aggressively to even just a declaration. Although I'm tempted to agree that Taiwan is already independent, the fact that the commies intimidate pretty much everyone into not recognizing Taiwan makes it a pretty feeble independence. So maybe we shouldn't muck up the word "independence".
In regards to the constitutional reform issue, it is typical for people outside of Taiwan to see it as equivalent to the independence issue. Folks on the outside don't hear about administrative inefficiencies caused by the fact that the current constitution was written in 1947 for a government intending to govern all of China (incl Mongolia), resulting in way too many hired government officials and more legislators than the US congress.
The constitutional reform is about trimming the bureaucratic fat to reflect the current reality. Understandably, with a constitution changed to govern only Taiwan instead of all China, the CCP regards as it as an assertion of TW identity, and I don't disagree.
True, on diplomatic paper, it is a feeble independence -- I think everyone acknowledges that. The independence effort relies on reality instead, where there is a robust democratic system with political liberty in practice.
Also, in regards to Kaohsiung, maybe you should pay a visit (I can host). Of course some shit happens, but from work of the last 5 years, the river doesn't stink anymore, you can now drink water out of the tap, and the new subway system is well under construction. All because of that bad DPP.
I've been visiting Kaohsiung almost every summer for the past 16 years, and I've just returned from there. Compared to cities in third world countries (including China), it may be very nice, but is that how low Frank Hsieh wants to aim? As for the tap water, people I know still won't drink it (not that that's entirely the fault of the city government). The subway system comes far too late (again, that's hardly the fault of the current administration), and I suspect it will lose even more money than most public transportation systems do, because Kaohsiung has sprawled so much it just won't be very convenient. Similarly, those upcoming athletic games may "put Kaohsiung on the map", but at the cost of a lot of public money. And how much did that ridiculous fish next to the Love River cost? Do you really want to praise Frank Hsieh for the boondoggles that his government has financed with taxpayer money? The fact that the KMT is guilty of corruption is no reason to excuse it in the DPP.
What bothers me most about Kaohsiung is the traffic, which is probably a non-issue to most Kaohsiung residents, who don't walk at all, preferring their scooters. If they do walk, it's not in the qilou or even on the sidewalks, but in the motorcycle lanes. The thing is, it doesn't have to be this way. Taipei (under Chen Shui-bian, I believe), became a much more pedestrian-friendly city.
Post a Comment