Survey on cross-strait affairs gets mixed results

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on March 16, 2006. It reports that according to results of a recent survey, over 80 percent of the respondents feel that the government cannot decide on independence or unification with China without the people's consent. Specifically, 84.9 percent of the Democratic Progressive Party respondents and 89.5 percent of the opposition Kuomingtang respondents all agree on the issue.

The survey was conducted by the Institute for National Policy Research. According to the survey results, 38.5 percent of the respondents think that cross-Taiwan Strait relations have deteriorated in 2005. In general, 65.3 percent of the respondents do not consider Taiwan as part of China.

According to the survey results, the three issues on which China needs to improve are democracy and freedom, social stability, and justice. This appears to indicate that for a lot of respondents, the key to the cross-strait issue is in the gap between Taiwan's and China's political and social systems. The key to cross-strait peace and Taiwan's sustainable development may be in Taiwan's promotion and facilitation of China's democratization.