The public's attitude toward cross-strait relations has become more vigilant despite the recent visits to China by two opposition leaders that were meant to help thaw the tension across the Taiwan Strait, a spokesman for the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Council Vice Chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said it is "quite interesting" that while the percentage of Taiwanese who consider the Chinese authorities to be "unfriendly" toward Taiwan's leaders has declined by 34 percentage points from last year's 79.4 percent to 45.4 percent, the percentage of people who consider the speed of government opening private cross-strait exchanges as "too slow" has also dropped, to 18.9 percent from last year's 25.2 percent.
Quoting the results of the latest opinion poll by National Chengchi University's Election Research Center on behalf of the council, You said the percentage of people who consider the speed of government opening cross-strait exchanges as "proper" has increased -- up 4.4 percentage points from last year to 42 percent -- while the percentage of those who consider the speed of such opening as "too quick" has also risen -- up 6.6 percentage points from last year to 25.7 percent.
The poll indicates that the people have become "intelligently vigilant" toward the development of cross-strait relations, You said.
The results of the poll are tantamount to asking why the opposition parties are so enthusiastic about engagement with China so soon after Beijing passed its "Anti-Secession" Law authorizing war if Taiwan edges toward formal independence, You said.
The poll also found that the Taiwanese have remained basically unchanged in their stance on the unification-independence issue -- 85.9 percent of the respondents favor the status quo -- about the same as the figure in last year's poll, You said.
The poll also indicates that 84.2 percent of the respondents approve of the government's efforts to push for the establishment of a cross-strait interaction framework for peace and stability, You said..
The poll of adults randomly selected nationwide was conducted by telephone May 4 to May 6. There were 1,084 valid responses, with a margin of error of 3 percent.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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