The Bangkok Post reports that Taiwanese in China generally favor the status quo.But interviews with Mr Chang and others among the 300,000 Taiwanese professionals who have come to live in China as a result of thawing relations, suggest the gap between the two sides is substantial, going beyond China's one-party rule and Taiwan's democracy.
``Taiwanese people think differently from people on the mainland,'' Mr Chang says. ``In China it's been a real struggle to survive. So people are a lot tougher here. If you put a Taiwanese child down in China, he'll be eaten up alive.''
Opinion polls in Taiwan say only about 10% of its 23 million people want immediate reunification with the mainland. About 15% support formal independence, while the remainder favour maintaining the island's self-governing status quo.
Talks with Taiwanese here suggest that 56 years of separation have taken a toll on whatever once existed of a common identity.
Hey, no kidding. Nobody here except a few unreconstructed mainlanders supports annexing the island to China.
[Taiwan] [China]
2 comments:
Do those unreconstuted mainlanders support annexing Taiwan to China or annexing China to the ROC-on-Taiwan? Do they even know any more? I never met any of them, but I've met a handful of radical pro-TIers. Maybe it's just where I hang out.
It must be where you hang out. I've met lots of unreconstructed mainlanders who one way or another want to see Taiwan become part of China.
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