DPP poll: 69% think Taiwan is an independent state
DPP announced a poll :
| Who defines Taiwan status (台海現狀） | Taiwanese 83.2% | China government 1.7% | Both 6.4% |
| Is Taiwan an independent sovereignty state? | Yes 69.2% | ||
| Is Taiwan part of China? | Yes 14.6% | ||
| A referendum is required when signing sovereignty-related agreements with China | Yes 84.8% | No 9.7% | |
| Join United Nations in the name of "Taiwan" | Yes 70.6% | No 19.6 |
It seems that Taiwanese conscience has already become the majority in Taiwan. I recalled President Chen said earlier that, by the time of the 2008 Presidential Election, Taiwanese consicience would rise to a level that any candidate advocating for "Unification with China" will have no chance at all of getting elected. I never truely believe in what he said like this one before ... :)
Labels: 2008 presidential election, poll, Taiwan independence, 台灣
posted Thursday, March 15, 2007 @ 10:07 PM by Taiwan Echo
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4 Comments:
It's conducted by the DPP; what a reliable poll. I wouldn't believe a KMT poll convincing us that the majority on Taiwan are pro-China either, even if one were to first assume that the KMT were pro-China.
Also according to the DPP, 60% of the Taiwan population thinks they are Taiwanese and not Chinese. How is that possible? What are their skin and hair colours, and the languages they speak? Oh right, Taiwanese is not a Chinese tongue; nevermind that Fujianese and Singaporean Chinese speak almost the same thing.
I would rather an independent institute, for example a university, do the surveying.
Channing, that's like arguing that Americans are Brits because we speak the same language. etc. The problem with the Chinese conception of culture is that it leaves no space for difference -- to be Chinese is to be the object of cultural imperialism, culture as defined by Beijing, with a politics that is avowedly expansionist. Don't you see? Each time you assert that Chinese culture == Chinese imperium, you force people to assert an alternative in order to stay politically free. Taiwanese culture is the inevitable creation of Chinese cultural imperialism. The moment China develops an official recognition of different Chinese cultures, it can crush the Taiwanese identity as a separate political force. Fortunately the Chinese are too rigid in their thinking to ever imagine a multicultural space labeled "Chinese."
So go ahead, keep asserting that "Chinese" culture. Each time you do that, you put another nail in the coffin of annexation.
Michael
My point was not simply culture; I would never in any way deny that Taiwan has developed many different cultures that are unique to it. One easy and obvious clue is the food and the linguistic slang in Taiwan. Everyone knows Taiwan is different, so I do not see the point in being "Taiwanese" and NOT Chinese.
My point is that every time the DPP plays the ethnicity card, its credibility sinks. 98% of Taiwan is Han Chinese by blood. Anyone who tries to say otherwise is pushing the limits of logic. Therefore trying to argue that one is not both Taiwanese AND Chinese is not logically sound. This is a game that the educated population sectors would sidestep anyway, but President Chen is quite good at playing with the minds of the rural folk.
About Americans and Brits; if you're referring to the white Caucasian population, they are both of the Anglo/Germanic ethnicity. To apply the same argument here would be for President Bush to say that he's not of the same race as PM Blair.
My point is that every time the DPP plays the ethnicity card, its credibility sinks.
But channing, playing the ethnicity card has kept both the KMT and the DPP in power. Ethnic politics were an invention of the KMT to create a coalition of Hakkas and aborigines against the Hoklos. The DPP is simply playing that game back. The KMT would like to imagine that the DPP loses credibility, but election after election shows the same thing -- asserting a Taiwanese identity pays off in votes.
98% of Taiwan is Han Chinese by blood. Anyone who tries to say otherwise is pushing the limits of logic.
Again, I'm afraid your ideas of "race" and "blood" are entirely primitive social constructions, channing. The Taiwanese are a mixed people with a strong admixture of genes from the aborigines. You can call them "Han" if you like, since that describes a social construction, not a genetic reality, but as we both know, definitions are values....
Therefore trying to argue that one is not both Taiwanese AND Chinese is not logically sound.
Definitions are values, Han. I quite agree that the Taiwanese are both Taiwanese and Chinese in some way. But unfortunately Beijing doesn't. Since Beijing plays this identity game, the locals are forced to make hard choices.
Bottom line: the Taiwanese identity is creation of Japanese and Chinese colonialism, as well as current Chinese imperialism.
This is a game that the educated population sectors would sidestep anyway, but President Chen is quite good at playing with the minds of the rural folk.
You've got this exactly backwards. As recent polls discussed by Lin Cho-shui in articles in the Taipei Times show, the DPP has vast support among both the young and educated. Rural populations are split because the KMT has old likes to the ag sector through the cooperatives, which were the most lucre-heavy institutions in the martial law era, distributing funds to build support for the KMT. The idea that easily misled rural folk vote for the DPP is KMT canard.
Michael
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