TVBS poll: Taiwanese want talks, just not opposition-led

TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwanese overwhelmingly want their government to talk to Beijing — they're just not sure the opposition party should be doing it for them. A new TVBS poll released Friday (April 24) found two-thirds support resuming official cross-strait negotiations, but only 39 percent backed Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun's (鄭麗文) meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) earlier this month.

The poll, conducted April 16-23 among 1,118 adults, found that support for government-to-government dialogue crossed party lines. Among supporters of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民進黨), 45 percent backed resuming negotiations while 44 percent opposed. Among Kuomintang (KMT, 國民黨) supporters, 95 percent favored talks. Among supporters of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP, 民眾黨), 91 percent supported negotiations. The survey carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Views on the April 10 summit itself were more divided. Forty-three percent believed the Cheng-Xi meeting (鄭習會) would help cross-strait peace, while 39 percent said it would not and 19 percent had no opinion. Among the 78 percent of respondents aware of the meeting, 46 percent described it as a "great success," while 31 percent called it a "failure."

The poll also asked about China's Taiwan Affairs Office (國台辦) announcement of 10 measures to promote cross-strait exchanges following the summit. Opinion was divided: 34 percent said the measures would benefit Taiwan, 28 percent said they would be harmful, and 36 percent had no opinion. The measures reportedly address tourism, agricultural products and direct flights.

Support for the 1992 Consensus, a controversial formula that both the KMT and Beijing have used as a basis for cross-strait relations, increased compared with a previous survey. Forty-six percent said they supported developing relations based on the consensus, up from 42 percent. Opposition also grew, from 22 percent to 32 percent, suggesting polarization rather than consensus.

The findings indicate a more cautious public mood compared with the 2015 meeting between then-President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Xi in Singapore — the first between leaders of Taiwan and China since the Chinese Civil War. A TVBS poll conducted after that summit found 41 percent supported the meeting and 47 percent believed it would help cross-strait peace. The current figures are slightly lower on both measures.

The current survey comes amid heightened military tensions in the Taiwan Strait, with official dialogue between Taipei and Beijing frozen for nearly a decade under successive DPP administrations. The Cheng-Xi summit marked the first meeting between KMT and Chinese Communist Party leaders since that freeze began.

The poll used a dual-frame methodology, sampling respondents via both landline and mobile phones. The 2015 poll used landline-only sampling, meaning younger respondents who rely primarily on mobile phones were likely underrepresented in the earlier survey. The current poll did not include demographic breakdowns by age or region for most questions beyond party affiliation.

The poll captured a public caught between competing impulses: a strong desire for dialogue after nearly a decade of silence, and persistent uncertainty about whether party-to-party talks can deliver what government negotiations might. With no alternative cross-strait channel in sight, Taiwanese people appear to be saying they want conversation — just not necessarily this one. ◼