Nearly 70 percent of Taiwanese support President William Lai’s (賴清德) rejection of China’s claims over Taiwan as outlined in his Double Ten National Day address, according to the results of a survey announced on Thursday by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).
Of the more than 1,000 respondents to the survey following Lai’s speech on Oct. 10, 68.8 percent supported Lai’s statement that “the Republic of China (ROC) has already put down roots in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, and the ROC and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are not subordinate to each other,” the MAC said.
Almost 70 percent of interviewees also backed Lai’s remark that “the PRC has no right to represent Taiwan,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news conference.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, the survey found that 87.3 percent of the respondents opposed “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holding military drills around Taiwan recently.”
After Lai delivered his speech on Oct. 10, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs later that day slammed him for using different means to “sell the fallacy of ‘Taiwan independence.’”
Beijing went on to conduct the “Joint Sword-2024B” military drills on Monday last week, which covered areas around Taiwan and involved the China Coast Guard, along with the army, navy, air force and rocket force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The survey showed that mainstream public opinion in Taiwan supports Lai’s cross-strait stance and the policy outlined in his National Day address, “firmly opposing the CCP’s coercive political claims and military intimidation,” the MAC said in a statement.
The survey, commissioned by the council, was conducted by market research company Ipsos from Thursday to Sunday last week through telephone interviews with adults aged 20 and above in Taiwan.
According to the council, 1,073 valid samples were collected, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
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
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS