Nearly 60 percent of the public blame China for Taiwan’s likely exclusion from this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), with the majority saying the government should take a tougher line on the issue, according to an opinion poll released yesterday.
The monthly poll conducted by the Cross-Strait Policy Foundation found that 56.2 percent of respondents blamed China for Taiwan’s WHA exclusion, while 29.8 percent said the government is responsible.
Asked if the government should call an international news conference to seek WHA participation, 68.9 percent of respondents said yes, while 69 percent said an official delegation should visit Geneva, Switzerland, during the WHA meeting to lodge a formal complaint about Taiwan’s exclusion.
Photo: CNA
Asked if they believed the government had tried hard to seek WHA participation, 58.5 percent of respondents said yes, but 29 percent said it did not.
In terms of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) China policy, 67.7 percent of respondents said they agreed with her “new situation, new test paper and new model” stance, while 22.1 percent disagreed.
Tsai’s policy of maintaining the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait is correct, 63.2 percent of respondents said, while 23.1 percent disagreed.
Asked about the so-called “1992 consensus,” 52 percent of respondents said it involves Taiwan accommodating Beijing’s “one China” principle, while 34.6 percent said the consensus allows room for “different interpretations” under the “one China” principle.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means.
Then-KMT Legislator Su Chi (蘇起) said in February 2006 that he had made up the term in 2000, when he headed the Mainland Affairs Council.
Asked if they would accept the “1992 consensus” if it meant accepting the “one China” principle, 70 percent of respondents said they would not and 21.5 percent said they would.
A clear majority said Taiwan should not accept the “1992 consensus” despite its diplomatic isolation (71.9 percent), while 16.4 percent said it should accept the consensus to seek international participation.
Even more feel Taiwan should not engage in “money diplomacy” to compete with China for diplomatic recognition (88.9 percent), while 7.2 percent said Taiwan should do so.
More than half of the respondents (58.4 percent) said Beijing has been provocative in its interactions with Taipei over the past year, but 23.7 percent said it was the other way around.
Meanwhile, Tsai has an approval rating of 55.9 percent and a disapproval rating of 38.5 percent, according to the poll. However, only 40.8 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with her performance, while 54.8 percent were dissatisfied.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said that while the public approves of the policy direction of Tsai’s administration, they are not happy with the “pace, scale and determination” with which the policies are being carried out.
The government has not held a major news conference on the WHA issue and the only statements made by the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan were press releases, suggesting a difference between public and government attitudes, Lo said.
“The ‘1992 consensus’ has no market in Taiwan if it denotes the ‘one China’ principle but eliminates room for ‘different interpretations,’” National Taiwan Normal University politics professor Fan Shih-ping (范世平) said.
“It is why former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration failed to sell the ‘1992 consensus’ on a ‘different interpretations’ platform because Beijing and other countries have recognized the ‘1992 consensus’ as conditioned on the ‘one China’ principle,” Fan said.
While the Tsai administration has shown self-restraint in maintaining ties with China, Taiwan’s WHA exclusion should be understood as an outcome of the political infighting in Beijing, where hawkish factions are gaining ground, Fan said.
The Cross-Strait Policy Foundation poll was conducted on May 9 and May 10 and had 1,074 valid samples. It has a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats