About 80 percent of respondents to a recent poll expressed support for demands made by students protesting against the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement that the government conduct a review of the treaty after new laws are enacted to monitor cross-strait agreements.
The survey was conducted by the Chinese-language Liberty Times’ (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) polling center through a random telephone sampling of 1,087 Taiwanese aged 20 or above on Monday and Tuesday — shortly after the government’s forced eviction of protesters occupying the Executive Yuan building.
The occupation of the nation’s highest administrative organ followed the unprecedented ongoing seizure of the legislative chamber by a group of students, who have urged the government to institutionalize supervision of cross-strait agreements and conduct a clause-by-clause review of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
As the occupation of the legislature entered its ninth day yesterday, neither President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) nor Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) have given an unequivocal response to the demands.
When asked about their opinion on the demands, about 80 percent of the respondents said they supported them, compared with 9.94 percent who opposed them.
When asked if the Ma administration should abrogate and renegotiate the trade agreement, about 75 percent of those polled were in favor of the idea, while 15.82 percent disapproved and 9.2 percent said they had no opinion.
Meanwhile, about 70 percent of the respondents expressed support for the student-led protests against the trade agreement, which has been called a “backroom deal” between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and China’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) due to the Ma administration’s failure to communicate with concerned industries before the treaty was signed on June 21 last year.
Only 20 percent of those polled were not supportive of what has been dubbed the “Sunflower Student Movement,” while 9.2 percent declined to express an opinion.
Asked about their feelings on the government’s forcible eviction of protesters who broke into the Executive Yuan building on Sunday night, approximately 53 percent of the respondents said the police had clearly overstepped their boundaries, compared with 34 percent who said the police handled the situation “properly” and about 13 percent who do not have an opinion.
The riot police resorted to force and water cannons to disperse the protesters, which led to violent clashes and bloodshed, with about 110 people injured.
The poll has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.97 percentage points.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS