Results of MAC public opinion survey on the Conference on Sustainable Development of Taiwan's Economy
The Mainland Affairs Council today released the results of a public opinion survey indicating that over 60 percent (63.5%) of the public in Taiwan support the government's holding of the Conference on Sustainable Development of Taiwan's Economy (CSDTE), and that over 80 percent (80.6%) of the public agree that after the CSDTE, people should concentrate their efforts on monitoring the government’s implementation of the consensus reached during the CSDTE.
The survey showed that the public identify to a considerable degree with the consensual opinions reached by the conference's Panel on Global Deployment and Cross-strait Economic and Trade Relations. Over 87 percent (87.7%) of the public agree that the government should establish a mechanism for cross-strait financial supervision and management and take defensive measures to ensure Taiwan's financial security; and 79.9 percent agree that the government should annually make public its cross-strait economic, trade and investment impact assessments to reduce the risks caused by cross-strait economic activity and trade due to the growing dependence of Taiwan's overall economy on China’s market. Furthermore, 82.2 percent of the public agree that in order to strengthen Taiwan's economy, the government should establish an information platform for overseas Taiwanese businesspeople to invest back in Taiwan, so as to encourage their return to Taiwan. And 81.3 percent of the public agree that in future, the government should consider protecting the overall interests of Taiwan when reviewing major China-bound investments by Taiwanese enterprises. On the issue of the direct cross-strait transportation links, 80.5 percent of the public agree that such links must be premised on ensuring national sovereignty and security, and that the links should be implemented only after the governments across the Strait have signed an agreement as the result of their negotiations held on an equal footing.
The MAC expresses that the results of the survey, conducted soon after the close of the CSDTE, show that the overwhelming majority of the Taiwanese public considerably support the government’s measures to concentrate civilian efforts on striving for the economy. In particular, there are considerably high expectations that in future the various sectors in Taiwan would pool their efforts in supervising the government to ensure its implementation of the consensus reached at the CSDTE. With regard to the consensual opinions reached by the CSDTE's Panel on Global Deployment and Cross-strait Economic and Trade Relations after heated discussion, the Taiwanese people also feel a strong identification. This shows that the consensus reached by the collective wisdom of the conference representatives from various fields is consistent with the trend of overall public opinion in Taiwan. In other words, the vast majority of the public highly support the position of putting Taiwan first and proceeding with cross-strait economic and trade policy in a careful and orderly manner.
The public opinion survey was conducted between August 1 and August 3 by China Credit Information Service, Ltd. (CCIS) under the authorization of the MAC. The results of the survey were based on telephone interviews of adults aged 20 to 69 in the Taiwan Area. A total of 1,069 effective samples were obtained, with a sampling error of about 3% based on a 95% confidence level.