... in just five months!

UPDATE 2a: The title and subheadline of this post [originally: "Support for Taiwan's immediate independence nearly triples ...in just six months!" -- based on a comparison with the MAC survey quoted below] has been changed to reflect a better comparison with a survey done by the same pollster the month after the MAC poll. Details from that poll and a link to the original are included below in "Update 2b." [/update 2a]

An article from Now News shows that a poll released today by the deep-blue Global Views Magazine (遠見雜誌) has some very interesting numbers related to the desire for Taiwan's formal independence:

民調顯示，19.0%民眾贊成台灣應該儘快獨立、10.3%認應先維持現狀再獨立（急獨與緩獨合計29.3%），40.7%先維持現狀再看情形、 11.0%永遠維持現狀（維持現狀合計為51.7%），4.3%先維持現狀再和大陸統一、4.0%台灣應該儘快和大陸統一（緩統與急統合計為8.3%），與馬總統執政以後，民眾贊成統一的比率並無變動。

[Tim Maddog translation:]
The survey says that 19.0% support independence as soon as possible. 10.3% want to preserve the status quo for now but declare independence later. (Supporters of immediate independence and delayed independence amount to 29.3%.) 40.7% want to preserve the status quo and decide later, while 11% want to preserve the status quo indefinitely (totaling 51.7% in favor of preserving the status quo [sic]). 4.3% want to preserve the status quo but unify with the mainland [sic] later. 4.0% of Taiwanese want to unify with the mainland [sic] as soon as possible. (Those in favor of unification add up to 8.3%.) After President Ma took office, there has been no change in support for unification.

UPDATE 1: Here's a direct link to the latest Global Views survey [464 KB PDF file]. [/update 1]

UPDATE 3: Here's the English version of the Global Views survey [152 KB PDF file]. [/update 3]

Just six month's ago, Taiwan's so-called Mainland Affairs Council (大陸委員會) did a survey which said that "6.7%" supported independence as soon as possible [12 KB PDF file].


A Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) survey from April 17 to 20, 2009
in which only 8.8% state a desire for Taiwan's unification with China.
UPDATE 2b: A May 13 - 15, 2009 survey from Global Views [744 KB PDF file] says:

[...] 15.0%贊成儘速獨立 [...]

[Tim Maddog translation:]
[...] 15% support immediate independence [...]

The current figure of 19% support for immediate independence would therefore amount to an increase of 26.66% (a four percentage point increase from the earlier 15%). The total support for unification in the May 2009 poll amounted to 8.3% -- precisely the same as the most recent poll. [/update 2b]

China's Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) -- chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait -- is coming to Taiwan for talks (and possibly to sign agreements) with Straits [sic] Exchange Foundation (海峽交流基金會) chairman and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice-chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) this December. Will you be out there protesting?

You are not in the minority. You'd better let the world hear your voices!

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Nodes: Taiwan, 台灣, China, 中國, Taiwan Independence, 台灣獨立, survey, 民調, Chiang Pin-kung, 江丙坤, P.K. Chiang, Chen Yunlin, 陳雲林

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chen Yunlin, Chiang Pin-kung, China, P.K. Chiang, survey, Taiwan, Taiwan Independence, 中國, 台灣, 台灣獨立, 民調, 江丙坤, 陳雲林

Dueling headlines

Note the headline of a front-page article in today's Taipei Times:

DPP chief slams cross-strait talks as failure

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that Sunday's round of cross-strait talks were a failure that made concessions on sovereignty but did not help Taiwanese businesses.

Tsai said the failure of the talks was inevitable given President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) "mindset."

She said the Ma government made four mistakes: It made concessions on sovereignty before the talks; it relied too much on China's goodwill and the Chinese economy; it avoided consultation with or supervision from the legislature and opposition parties; and it had no way of ensuring that national security officials and the government's negotiators had no conflict of interest.

Tsai said Ma had made a comment supporting Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) speech marking the 30th anniversary of Beijing's "open letter to Taiwanese compatriots," which highlighted the "one China" principle, and which was a concession on sovereignty.

The government also gave up negotiations on the "fifth freedom of the air," essentially implying that cross-strait flights are domestic flights, she said.

Compare that with the front-page headline of yesterday's China Post


I don't think that "success" means the same thing
to the China Post that it does to others
(Click to enlarge)

SUCCESS IN NANJING

[...]

P.K. Chiang, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), signed the agreements on financial cooperation, regular flights across the Taiwan Strait, and joint efforts to fight crime with his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin at the former capital of the Republic of China in the afternoon. Chen, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), spoke before the signing, pledging more foreign direct investment in Taiwan and welcoming Taiwan entrepreneurs to invest in China.

SEF and ARATS are quasi-governmental organizations charged with the conduct of relations between the two sides of the strait.

They met for the third time since President Ma Ying-jeou was inaugurated in May of last year, easing the tensions across the strait, while his predecessor Chen Shui-bian carried on his policy of creeping independence for Taiwan.

The China Post, you may notice, does one decent thing by putting P.K. Chiang and Chen Yunlin on equal footing. On the other hand, however, they both ignore the real problems pointed out by Tsai Ing-wen, and they conjure up imaginary ones such as "creeping independence."

Home field advantage
Considering that this took place in the old ROC capital -- on China's turf -- where official Chinese media referred to Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) as "President" of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) while Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤, AKA P.K. Chiang) was called the "Chairman" of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) (hardly on "equal footing"), I'd agree with both headlines. It's "success" for those on China's side but yet another failure for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in their dealings with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Debase? How low can you go?
For the DPP, it's obvious that they wouldn't budge on whatever the status quo was at the time and that they'd never give an inch when it came to Taiwan's sovereignty. However, what I see for the KMT's own "bottom line" is that they have no bottom line.

Fool me once, shame on you. But the shameless KMT will let the CCP fool them as many times as it takes for Taiwan to be annexed.

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Kneel-son ratings: Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chiang Pin-kung, 江丙坤, P.K. Chiang, Straits Exchange Foundation, 海峽交流基金會, Chen Yunlin, 陳雲林>, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, 海峽兩岸關係協會, Chinese Communist Party, 中國共產黨, China Post, 英文中國郵報

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chen Yunlin, Chiang Pin-kung, China Post, Chinese Communist Party, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, 中國共產黨, 台灣, 國民黨, 江丙坤, 英文中國郵報, 陳雲林, 馬英九