More than 60 percent of Taiwanese worry that Taiwan’s economy depends too much on China, while as many as 75 percent of young people in the country consider themselves Taiwanese, not Chinese, the results of a CommonWealth magazine poll showed.
Prior to the survey, polls conducted by several organizations and media outlets showed that the decline in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) support at the local elections earlier this month was associated with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) China-leaning economic policies.
The recent poll showed that as many as 61 percent of respondents worried that Taiwan’s economy was too dependent on China.
More than 70 percent of respondents, meanwhile, said they were not satisfied with the current economy, while only about 20 percent said they were satisfied with it.
Meanwhile, 62 percent of respondents said they considered themselves Taiwanese, while 22 percent thought of themselves as Taiwanese and Chinese and only 8 percent considered themselves Chinese.
As many as 75 percent of the respondents aged between 18 and 29 considered themselves to be Taiwanese.
Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies chairman Chao Chun-shan (趙春山) was quoted by the magazine as saying that, in similar polls in the past, most people would choose the option “Taiwanese but also Chinese” because they identified with Chinese culture and Chinese ethnicity.
However, nowadays the term “China” tends to represent the People’s Republic of China, and thus Taiwanese people identify more with Taiwan.
Asked about the independence-unification issue, 11 percent of respondents said they would like Taiwan to declare independence “as soon as possible,” 2 percent said they preferred unification with China as soon as possible, while 78 percent preferred the “status quo.”
Thirty-three percent of respondents said that while they preferred to maintain the “status quo,” they would like to see Taiwan eventually declare independence, 35 percent said they wanted the “status quo” to remain permanent and 10 percent said they would like to see Taiwan eventually unify with China.
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