At a recent meeting with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Taiwan Affairs Office Chairman Wang Yi (王毅), stated that the basis for mutual trust between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait was “opposition to Taiwanese independence.”
But public opinion surveys conducted over the past year by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) show the numbers of people identifying themselves as Taiwanese and supporting Taiwan independence are not falling. On the contrary, it is the numbers of people identifying themselves as Chinese and supporting unification that show a downward trend.
These figures indicate that China’s policies of opposing Taiwanese independence and trying to use cross-strait links to promote unification are failing.
The surveys carried out by the MAC show the proportion of people broadly supporting Taiwanese independence climbed from 23.1 percent in March last year, before President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, to 27.3 percent in October. It then fell back to 21.8 percent in April this year. Among all those who expressed an opinion, the proportions were 23.4, 28.2 and 23.5 percent respectively. In contrast, the proportion of respondents broadly supporting unification dropped from 12.2 percent in March last year to 6.2 percent in October, recovering slightly to 8.8 percent in April this year. Among those expressing an opinion, the figures are 12.3, 6.5 and 9.5 percent respectively.
Polls conducted by the RDEC in May each year show the proportion of people in Taiwan identifying themselves as Taiwanese was approximately 63, 67 and 65 percent respectively for the past three years, while the proportion of those identifying themselves as Chinese fell from 15.4 percent in 2007 to 13.6 percent last year and 11.5 percent this year. The remainder either identified themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese or gave no clear response.
Ma has said that the people on each side of the Taiwan Strait both belong to the same Chinese nation and that they only have different household registrations, not different nationalities. In spite of what Ma said, and despite burgeoning cross-strait economic and social exchanges, these poll results show that most people in Taiwan now identify themselves as Taiwanese and that the number of people identifying themselves as Chinese continues to fall.
As the number of people identifying themselves as Taiwanese continues to grow, the great majority of people in Taiwan think the Ma government has a duty to uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity in the course of talks on cross-strait economic deregulation. In an opinion poll conducted by Wealth Magazine (財訊) at the beginning of April, 65.7 percent of respondents said they do not want Taiwan to yield to China on politics and sovereignty for the sake of economic benefits, while just 19.7 percent said it would be permissible to do so.
Following the third round of talks between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in Nanjing in April, many people in Taiwan expressed doubts at to whether the Ma administration was doing all it could to uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity.
In a poll published in the Chinese-language newspaper the China Times on April 28, 35 percent of respondents said they thought the talks had weakened Taiwan’s sovereignty, while an equal number thought they had not. An opinion poll done by the MAC showed that 39.5 percent of the public think Taiwan’s sovereignty had been compromised in the course of cross-strait talks, while 54.3 percent think it has not. The SEF also conducted its own poll, in which 39.7 percent of respondents expressed the view that cross-strait talks were harmful to Taiwan’s sovereignty, while 49.3 percent said they are not.
However, although nearly 40 percent of the public feel that the Ma administration is not doing all it should to uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity, more than 60 percent are in favor of holding talks on cross-strait economic deregulation and making such changes systematic.
In an opinion poll conducted by the MAC at the end of April, 66.7 percent of respondents said the three agreements arrived at in April’s talks between the SEF and ARATS would have a positive effect on Taiwan’s economic development, while 23.7 percent thought the effects would be negative. In a survey published by the SEF in the middle of last month, 60.9 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the nine agreements achieved between the two sides over the past year, while 28.2 percent were dissatisfied.
The results show that the government should uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity at the same time as pursuing policies of opening up and encouraging cross-strait exchanges. Finding the right balance between these two things will not be easy, as the government has to try and achieve a consensus at home at the same time as dealing with pressure from China.
On her recent visit to Beijing, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) did her job in promoting the Kaohsiung World Games, but she also used the words “our central government and President Ma Ying-jeou” when addressing her Chinese hosts.
Taiwan’s two main parties should consider these factors and close ranks around the position of “subjective opening up,” which means upholding Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity at the same time as pragmatically encouraging more open social and economic relations across the Taiwan Strait.
While promoting cross-strait exchanges and deregulation, the government should not sacrifice Taiwan’s sovereignty and identity. As to the Democratic Progressive Party, it can denounce the Ma government for leaning too much toward China, but it must at the same time put forward its own pragmatic proposals for cross-strait exchanges. This is what the broadest section of public opinion in Taiwan demands.
Tung Chen-yuan is an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at National Chengchi University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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