While 47.3 percent of the public think cross-strait exchanges over the past three years have not negatively impacted Taiwan’s sovereignty, 40 percent believe that there has been a severe erosion of sovereignty following the cross-strait exchanges initiated by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration since 2008, according to a survey released by the Taiwan Brain Trust yesterday.
Think tank chief executive Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said that the survey was conducted on Friday and Saturday last week, before the recent revelation of an internal WHO memo dated September last year that showed the body instructed members to refer to Taiwan as a “Province of China.”
The percentage of people believing Taiwan’s sovereignty has been eroded as a result of cross-strait exchanges could very well be higher if a new survey asking the same questions was conducted now, Lo added.
Former representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told a press conference held by the think tank that since Ma assumed the presidency in May 2008, the -government’s foreign affairs policies and even domestic matters had come to depend on Beijing’s “help and good will.”
However, the truth of the matter is that Beijing is not friendly to Taiwan at all and its Taiwan policies are designed to weaken Taiwan’s international standing and threaten Taiwan with its military power, Wu said, adding that there are increasing signs that the international community is starting to believe that Taiwan considers China to be its patron.
The poll, coming just days before the Ma administration marks three years in power, indicated that Ma’s approval rate stood at 40.2 percent, while his disapproval rate remained at 48.3 percent.
It also showed that 41.7 percent agreed that Ma had broken many of his campaign promises made three years ago, though 37.4 percent disagreed.
While 16.8 percent of respondents said their personal economic situation had improved over the past three years, 49.9 percent said there had been no change and 30.5 percent said that their financial situation had grown worse.
In addition, 78.6 percent said they believed the growing gap between the nation’s rich and poor was a serious issue, while 13.9 percent said it was not serious.
Meanwhile, approval of the Cabinet’s performance was 35.5 percent, with a disapproval rate of 50.9 percent, the poll showed.
The poll collected 1,078 samples and had a margin of error of 2.98 percent.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
RSS