President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could face “the public’s punishment” in the seven-in-one elections at the end of next year, as more than 60 percent of respondents in an opinion poll released yesterday said they intended to “punish Ma with their ballots.”
In a survey conducted by Taiwan Thinktank, 62.6 percent of respondents said they would use the elections to voice their opposition to the president’s poor performance.
Only 26.5 percent of those polled disagreed with the idea, while 10.9 percent declined to comment.
Meanwhile, a majority of the respondents expressed concerns about the cross-strait service trade agreement, with 85.5 percent saying that they knew nothing about the pact and 61.6 percent worrying about the potential impact to the local service sector.
A total of 70.9 percent of the respondents said they worried that their jobs would be affected by the agreement and 68.9 percent said the pact placed the interests of large corporations above those of smaller businesses, the survey showed.
Forty-four percent to 32 percent said that the trade agreements Ma signed with Beijing since taking office have had more negative impacts than positive ones.
The perceived failure of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) “could be why people were unsure of the service trade agreement without knowing much about it,” former National Taiwan University professor Chen Po-chih (陳博志) said.
The poll also found that 78.9 percent of respondents did not believe the government’s pledge that 80 percent of small businesses owners would not be affected by the scheduled electricity rate hike next month.
A price increase before a comprehensive reform of the state-owned Taiwan Power Co (台電) was unreasonable, 76 percent of the respondents said, with only 15.2 percent viewing the price rise acceptable.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS