CHINESE PRESSURE:Academic Chao Chun-shan said Beijing’s objective has not changed and it is moving to sanction businesspeople who favor independence
Taipei Times
Date: May 28, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter
The percentage of people identifying themselves as “Taiwanese” has reached a record high,
Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation chairman You Ying-lung, second right, speaks in Taipei yesterday. Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
according to a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.
More than 80 percent of respondents self-identified as Taiwanese, compared with 8.1 percent who identified themselves as Chinese and 7.6 percent who identified as both in the poll, whose wording asked respondents if they viewed themselves as “Taiwanese,” “Chinese” or had “other thoughts.”
When asked to choose between eventual independence and reunification with China, more than 51 percent said they favored independence, while 15 percent favored reunification and 25 percent favored maintaining the “status quo.”
“The results represent a historic peak for identification as Taiwanese and show that it has decisively replaced identification as Chinese as Taiwan’s mainstream ethnic identification,” foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said, attributing respondents’ relatively high support for independence to the poll’s focus on an eventual future rather than the immediate choice used in many surveys. [FULL STORY]
