About 67 percent of Taiwanese consider China to be more of a threat to the nation than the US, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed yesterday.
The poll was conducted after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) concluded their respective visits to the US and China.
About 53 percent of respondents said that the US shares similar interests with Taiwan, while 51 percent said Taiwan could not afford to distance itself from the US and China.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Responding to the poll’s hypothetical question of whom they would choose if forced to pick between the US and China, 60.8 percent sided with Washington, while only 25 percent said they wished to maintain closer ties with Beijing.
Tsai’s stopovers in the US before and after her visit to Central American allies received general public acclaim, with 61.6 percent of respondents saying the visits helped improve Taiwan-US relations, and 72.2 percent saying the president’s international visits helped increase Taiwan’s international profile.
About 80 percent of respondents said they were proud to be Taiwanese, the poll showed.
Comparing the visits by Tsai and Ma, 47.9 percent of respondents said Tsai fared better, while 25 percent said that Ma performed better.
Asked to consider the visits separately, 60.6 percent were satisfied with Tsai’s performance during her visit, while only 35 percent were satisfied with Ma’s.
Association secretary-general Wang Chih-sheng (王智盛) said the results of the survey showed that Taiwanese favor the US over China, adding that they might serve as a reference basis for cross-strait policies proposed by the candidates in next year’s presidential election.
The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday via random landline telephone sampling, targeting citizens aged 20 or above across the nation’s 22 municipalities.
The results had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Additional weighting was given to poll data based on the respondents’ place of residence, gender and age, all of which referenced a January report by the Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Household Registration.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
RSS