The existential meaninglessness of Tsai's approval ratings

The chart above shows Ma Ying-jeou's trust and approval ratings from the TISR Taiwan Mood Barometer Survey from Dec of 2015, just before the election. The chart shows his ratings for the whole of his Administration. The dark blue line at the bottom that ends in 18.3% is his satisfaction rating, the red line, trust, the yellow, distrust, and the blue, dissatisfaction.

That's right. Ma's approval hardly touched 40% the whole of his eight years, and he spent most of his second term below 20%. He got re-elected with below-30% satisfaction.

Let us recall that at the moment Tsai's party is relentlessly squeezing KMT assets, reducing everyone's pensions, redirecting public infrastructure spending, and supporting gay marriage. Change is slow and everyone is impatient. Being above 30% is a strong performance, testimony to her ability to stay calm and never say anything stupid.

I'm posting this because I have had conversations with people who really ought to know better: the proper comparison is with Taiwan presidents who traditionally have low satisfaction ratings, not the President of some other country. Taiwanese are pessimists and complainers, like most humans, and are always dissatisfied with the pace of change, unless they are dissatisfied with the direction of change.

Let me emphasize this: Tsai's satisfaction ratings aren't low. They are, compared to Ma's, somewhat higher overall. I fully expect them to continue to sink into the twenties and bounce around there, as Ma's did, and Tsai to win re-election, as Ma did. The reasons for these ratings are structural and have nothing to do with who is the President, as I noted in my post on the LA Times hit piece on Tsai Ing-wen.

A complicating factor is that there is no group like TISR with stable long-term polling on the issue, and frankly I do not trust the polls from these new organizations, because I do not know what their politics are. TISR was a staid Establishment poll, generally solid. Unfortunately TISR stopped polling. Their last poll of Tsai has her at 34.6% approval at the end of October last year. Obviously the sheen from the presidential election evaporated quickly, and she fell into the usual territory for Taiwan presidents.

Good luck finding a reliable poll on Chen Shui-bian. Here and there one can dip into the past: for example, this Oct 2005 UDN poll has Chen at 25%, in his second term, which feels reasonable.

Nothing to see here, move along folks.
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LA Times runs hit piece on Tsai Ing-wen

Heading back here soon....

The LA Times ran a hit piece on President Tsai today. How did I know how much it sucked? Three friends whose PHD work is on Taiwan politics issues sent it to me with WTF? texts. If the LA Times is ever puzzled as to why democracy is on the decline in the world or how President Trump got elected, it need merely examine its editorial posture. Why O why don't we have a better media...

After some opening boilerplate, the writer, Ralph Jennings, observes:

Tsai’s approval rating sank to 33% in June, down from just over 39% a month earlier. That puts her in politically dangerous territory, below even the historic low ratings that U.S. polls show for President Trump.

As I pointed out ages ago in my column in Taiwan News, the proper context for assessing Tsai's approval rating is Taiwan and its Presidents. Comparing her to Trump is simply a gratuitous troll which indicates the obvious anti-Tsai slant of the piece. 

I admit it was kind of Jennings to signal his position so early in the text, so that rational readers could leave immediately. After all, we'd already read this a year ago in the South China Morning Post from Lawrence Chung, whose political preferences will be obvious to longtime readers, and don't need the deja vu. Hint: when you're mimicking the pro-Beijing media, there's a problem...

Contextualized properly, Jennings should have asked: what were (previous President) Ma's approval ratings? After the initial euphoria, Ma fell into the low 20s and basically hung there until July of 2009, when he climbed back to the high 30s thanks to a stock market rally and other transient factors. In Aug of that year, readers may recall, Typhoon Morakot visited the island, and Ma wrecked his approval ratings more or less permanently by his incompetent, dilatory, and inane response to it.

"Dangerous territory"? Be serious. Ma got re-elected with much lower approval ratings. Note that Jennings adduces not a single Taiwan-based fact to show that her poll numbers are "dangerous". This is just editorializing disguised as "reporting".

Jennings continues...

Tsai has kept the peace, as promised, but relations with China have been tense, and Beijing has taken steps to undermine its Taiwanese rival. China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, but Taiwan — with tacit U.S. support — has resisted unification.

This is actually not a bad version of The Formula even though it does not assign a cause to cross-strait tensions -- those mysterious tensions that are the Augustinian Uncaused Cause of cross-strait cosmology -- and as he usually does, Jennings notes further down that most Taiwanese want independence. Kudos to him for that.

Many Taiwanese see Tsai’s policy as one of inaction, not stability.

“The government has taken a very negative attitude on mainland China policy,” said Ku Chung-hwa, a standing board member with the Taipei-based watchdog group Citizen Congress Watch, which advocates transparency in government. Despite Beijing’s demands to come to the table as a unified China, he said, “Tsai has nothing to say. This stalemate is typical of a cold war.”

This paragraph is one of my favorites in this piece. Jennings sources this quote not from a public pollster, an academic who focuses on public opinion, or someone familiar with conditions island-wide, but from a professional government critic whose specialization is the legislature, not foreign policy. If you need a critical quote, that's the guy to go to. Smart.

You could even reverse the order of nouns in that first sentence: Many Taiwanese see Tsai's policy as one of stability, not inaction. Without a number, "many" could mean anything... and means nothing.

After noting the horrible blow of Panama's defection, LATimes scribes:

The Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation said its surveys show that 58% of respondents are dissatisfied with the president’s handling of China. About 60% want eventual independence. (Although Taiwan is functionally independent from China now, it exists in legal limbo and is recognized by only a few countries.)

(Love that comment in parentheses: no country recognizes Taiwan. They that recognize "Taiwan" all recognize the ROC as the official government of China.)

The major issue here is not the poll numbers (other outfits have similar numbers) but the timing and of course, the major omissions. Yes, of course Tsai's policy is going to be the subject of angst after a diplomatic setback. That's natural. But if you look at the polls prior to that (and I expect after it), support for her cross-strait policies is strong. See this MAC poll, for example, or this poll after the WHA debacle.

Jennings simply timed the piece to take advantage of the angst. Smart.

This is followed by a farrago of bullshit:

Those who prefer dialogue with China believe it could minimize the risk of conflict and extend trade and investment ties that Tsai’s predecessor had facilitated. Trade reached $121 billion in the year just before Tsai took office and tourist arrivals from China numbered a record 3.3 million in 2016.

"Those who prefer dialogue with China..." is just.... twisted. Of course the Tsai Administration wants dialogue with China (and quietly engages in it). Everyone on all sides of the debate wants dialogue with China, everyone on all sides believes dialogue minimizes conflict -- it is Beijing that has consistently refused to talk. Jennings simply fails to properly contextualize: this paragraph actually refers to "those who want dialogue with China at the price of conceding that Taiwan is part of China". The people making these claims are, as polls show, a solid minority: 70% do not want Tsai to recognize the one China principle (59% here in 2016 poll just prior to her inauguration, with same minority). Most of this minority vote KMT, which of course goes unmentioned here. These are not people with sane alternatives: they are the pro-China opposition.

Another misrepresentation is the trade number: Jennings simply puts an isolated number there, and never informs the reader that the Ma Administration killed trade growth with China and flooded the island with imports from China. The $121 billion trade "reached" was not only a decline from the $130 billion peak in 2014 but occurred amidst a collapse in Taiwan's trade surplus with the authoritarian state across the water. The key issue, ECFA's destruction of Taiwan's trade surplus, is never mentioned in the international media. These failed policies of Ma hurt Taiwan and helped put Tsai in power. Last year I noted:

In 2010 Ma Ying-jeou’s government signed the ECFA with China, an agreement promoted and now touted by journalists who largely live outside Taiwan. Almost immediately trade with China began to stagnate. After slumping in 2009, two-way trade recovered to $112 billion in 2010, and then hit $127 billion in 2011. After ECFA? It hovered in the $120 billion range, finally clambering to $130 billion in 2014 before plummeting to $115 billion last year. At present, thanks to China’s slowing economy, trade is now lower than before the “landmark” ECFA agreement came into effect.

Thus, Jennings never reports to his readers that the People Who Want Dialogue With China are people who supported trade and tourism policies that failed to produce meaningful economic gains.

But why report complex and interesting facts, when it is so much easier to produce an anti-Tsai construction?

Finally, buried at the bottom, is the reality. Must have been painful to have been forced to write this:

The president has played up economic policy such as infrastructure spending and time-off requirements for workers. The economy is expected to grow by about 2% this year, up half a percentage point from 2016, and manufacturing output is expected to exceed that.

Trade with China grew to $133 billion from April 2016 to April 2017, mostly under Tsai’s watch.

Oh yeah. Tsai's policies are actually more successful at the moment than Ma's had been just before her. Imagine if this had been located at the beginning of the piece -- it would have been impossible to write it with a strong anti-Tsai slant. Jennings at least wisely concedes that falling poll ratings don't really mean anything for her actual support, but that too is buried at the bottom. Should have been first...

Falling ratings are a structural issue. Here is how I put it last year when her ratings first began to fall....

The key point is this: the slumping ratings mean little by themselves. Instead, they reflect the intersection of Taiwan's identity politics and Taiwan voter expectations. At first happy with the possibility of change, light blue and light green middle of the road voters will gradually ooze into the dissatisfied camp as the pace change slows for the particular issues they are interested in, while iron minorities in the Blue and Green camps stake out positions on either side. It will come as no surprise to this writer if Tsai ends up with 20-30% satisfaction ratings at the end of the first term, essentially the proportion of Green voters who will always be satisfied with Tsai, yet gets re-elected and her party with her. In the TISR polls before the 2012 election Ma Ying-jeou consistently polled under 30% yet comfortably won re-election. It is not difficult to foresee the same pattern with Tsai – a smaller victory, with a few surprising regional defeats. Similarly, the legislature is perennially one of the lowest-rated branches of the government in Taiwan (and in many democracies), but most legislators receive multiple terms. Low ratings appear to be little impairment to re-election, while high ratings guarantee nothing – Chen Shui-bian's ratings as mayor of Taipei were generally excellent, but he was decisively beaten in 1998 by Ma Ying-jeou.

But I guess it is easier to write clickbait articles saying ZOMG TSAI IS GIVING TAIWAN THE SADZ than to rationally interpret the meaning of the ratings. I mean, how can you pitch a piece saying "Tsai's falling ratings are essentially temporary and meaningless and her economic polices are doing well in the current global economic conditions, and she keeps her mouth shut, works closely with Japan, and hasn't pissed off the US"... Nope: reality makes poor clickbait.

Hey thanks, LA Times, for turning the president of an allied democracy into a clickbait prop.

You suck.

ADDED: for contrast, try this piece from Ketagalan from a credentialed scholar on Taiwan politics on Tsai's first year..

UPDATED: I've posted on Tsai's satisfaction ratings in the Taiwan context here.
UPDATED: Taiwan Sentinel also ran a piece on this hit piece.
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Poll Eye

Pingtung Aquarium.

A friend and astute observer of things Taiwan flipped me some poll info today from TISR and TVBS on the local elections....

TISR does a periodic Taiwan mood barometer. Ma Ying-jeou's dissatisfaction ratings are at 73.6% with Premier Jiang at 66% dissatisfaction. Jiang killed his presidential shot when he became Premier. The public view of the DPP is 31 (positive) to 35 (negative) but the negative fell from the last poll, while for the KMT the numbers are 20 and 54 and the negative is rising from the last poll.

TISR also gives numbers for Taipei in their October 1 poll, with Ko leading Lien 33-24. They also break down things demographically.

Those numbers look ugly for the KMT going forward. Support for Lien is strong in the age 50 and up cohorts, but falls off markedly as people get younger. The young want Ko. Education shows a similar pattern. While Lien does better with the less educated, for people with university education and up, Ko crushes Lien, 41.5 to 18.4. The last section shows the vote by camp affiliation. Blues support Lien at a surprisingly tepid rate, only 59.4%, while 85.7% of the greens support Ko. But among independents Ko has a nearly 4-1 margin over Lien, 30.0% to 8.4%. Those "independents" are probably all light blues in reality.

For Taichung, the TVBS poll of likely voter dated Sept 29 has Lin Jia-lung up 44-30, with Hu down 3 points from mid-July and Lin up 2 since then. Undecideds in that poll were 26%, meaning there is plenty of room for Hu to come storming back. Sure enough, the October Sept poll has Lin up only 32.2% to 29.8%. The pattern of voter demographics is broadly similar to that of Taipei, though not as severe, reflecting the fact that Hu is a much better candidate than the hapless Sean Lien. Hu does much better with younger voters than Sean Lien, but for education it's basically the same. The independents are somewhat stronger for Lin as well.

In Changhua TVBS has the KMT ahead 30-29 for the county chief, with 36% undecided. That poll is two weeks old. In the Yunlin County chief election the DPP is up 33-27 with 40% undecided, about a week ago.

ARGH, mea culpa: Your info on the Taichung polls is incorrect. The TISR one which showed Lin up three points was done on 9/24; the other poll you referenced which had Lin up by 14 was done from 9/25-9/29 by TVBS and was released today. You can see that poll here:

http://home.tvbs.com.tw/static/FILE_DB/PCH/201410/2014101409542394.pdf

The other numbers in that poll don't actually bode well for Hu, and his approval rating is falling and he is less liked than Lin.
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Taiwan = ROC? Yes, but not the way you might think

Rare clear night here in Taichung. So happy with this picture.

TISR published a very interesting poll this week picked up by the Taipei Times:

The survey, conducted by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research (TISR), showed that 69.7 percent believe that Taiwan and China are “two countries with separate development,” 9.6 percent think that both sides belong to “a divided ROC” and 2.4 percent see the two as belonging to “a divided People’s Republic of China [PRC].” A further 18.2 percent had no opinion, the survey showed.

Given a choice of how they would like the international media to refer to the country, “Taiwan” ranked first at 78.9 percent, followed by the ROC at 72.5 percent, “Chinese Taipei” at 25.8 percent and “Taiwan, China” at 6.5 percent; 3.7 percent had no answer.

This is the first poll I've come across that really hints at the way Taiwanese have taken "ROC" to stand for Taiwan. This is the opposite of the goal that the KMT had, which was to subsume Taiwan into the ROC. Instead, the Taiwanese have hollowed out the ROC -- they are happy to use that name but are cold to its outlandish territorial claims. They have also appropriated the ROC flag as their own, as a flag representing Taiwan (but not China). The public even appears to feel that there is no need to change the name of the country if China recognizes the ROC (a weird question, that).

TISR is the former Global Views, which allegedly shut down its political polling after pressure from the KMT during the 2012 Presidential campaign since it was finding Tsai ahead of Ma (story). The poll is online here.
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Daily Links:

• Two videos from the Woodrow Wilson Center: Taiwan's Dilemma: A Democracy Divided Over National Security and Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse
• China's Taiwan Affairs Office says political talks cannot be put off indefinitely. Ma government replies it has not avoided politics in favor of economics -- pretty much the exact opposite of what it says at home. 
• Reporters from Phils and Borneo Post taken on leisure farm junket. 
• Where's the development going to boom? Taoyuan.
• The Taiwan Oyster and its filmmaker.
• A tale of Taiwan's intelligence agencies in action assassinating among the Shan people in the 1970s. 

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Ma Polls Down

At Tianzhong Station.

It seems almost superfluous to say so, but the President is deeply unpopular. FocusTaiwan says....

President Ma Ying-jeou's approval rating has fallen to 21 percent from 23 percent a year ago, according to a United Daily News poll conducted as Ma nears the end of the first year of his second term in office. He was sworn in on May 20, 2012.

Disapproval of Ma's performance rose from 66 percent to 70 percent during the same period, the poll results showed.

Although the government continues to trumpet the economy as its top priority, its efforts have been found lacking, with 76.4 percent of respondents saying they were not satisfied with the current economic situation in Taiwan.

UDN is rabidly pro-KMT. Taiwan Thinktank had similar but slightly lower numbers out the other day. Both pan-Blue and pan-Green polling organizations are getting similar numbers. According to the UDN poll Ma's strong suit is foreign policy and his weakness is the economy.

Mustn't read much into this. Next year's local elections will be contested on local issues with some influence from Ma's low numbers. Ma and the KMT will again have the strong support of the monied classes since no serious progress has been made on Taiwan's wealth gap, income inequality, or tax unfairness. But slumping domestic numbers go a long way to explain why Ma has come on "tough" against the Philippines in incident of the dead fisherman.

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Daily Links:

• Social innovation: lessons from Taiwan, SK, and Singapore.
• US detective has culture shock on trip to Taiwan
• Taiwan tries to regain lead in consumer electronics

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Poll Revival shows Ma unpopular

Some good news on the polling front. The Taipei Times reports...

The three most chosen descriptions of Ma’s brand were all negative, with 60.6 percent of participants saying Ma was “over-packaged,” 53.3 percent saying his abilities were “exaggerated” and 38.5 percent seeing him as “an expired, deteriorating product” in the survey conducted by research firm Taiwan Indicators Survey Research.

The newly established company, headed by former Global Views Survey Research Center director Tai Li-an (戴立安), released its first Taiwan Mood Barometer Survey, which Tai said would be conducted twice a month and cover various economic and political issues.

Some of you may recall that Global Views Survey Research Center shut down its political polling in October of 2011 in a move that was widely seen as kowtowing to the ruling party because its polls were showing that Tsai was ahead of Ma. The poll, though stiffly pro-Blue, was widely respected. Now that team is back in business with a new business.

As for the actual numbers, Ma is likely to be unpopular for a while until his satisfaction numbers creep back up into the 30s, more or less the norm. If Ma's unpopularity persists, it might lead to losses in local elections, as happened in the run-up to the presidential election, but it wouldn't mean anything as far as his getting elected again, assuming he could run, but he can't....
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TVBS: Public Kinda of One Mind on One Country Two Areas

Love locks on a pedestrian bridge across the tracks at the Fengyuan Train Station in Fengyuan. Wiki: "local legend holds that the magnetic field generated by trains passing underneath will cause energy to accumulate in the locks and fulfill the wishes".

A new poll from the rabidly pro-KMT TV station TVBS shows that Ma's China policies remain unpopular, perhaps more so than they have ever been. 55% of those polled oppose former KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung's idea of "One Country, Two Areas", with only 19% agreeing and 27% undecided. This outcome is interesting in light of the poll's other findings....

....Since Ma took the throne in 2008, support for independence and Taiwanese identity have both been growing. The latest poll says:  69% favor independence but only 16% support unification if only these two choices are given. Consider that independence is at ~70% but objection to "One Country, Two Areas" is 15% lower. Someone needs to do some very detailed polling on what "independence" means because there are obviously some minds which find One nation, two areas compatible with independence. Perhaps a large segment of the population simply believes that all the talk is just so much sound and fury, signifying not much. After all, an announcement by an Honorary Chairman for Life who has no formal government position really means diddly -- it gives the government the chance to float the trial balloon, gauge the reaction, and deny that anything happened, if necessary.

Among the young support for independence reaches 80% -- only 12% want to be annexed to Beijing.

The numbers are similar but a little higher for Taiwanese identity. More interestingly, with three possible choices -- clever of TVBS to offer these choices -- hardly anyone sees themselves as solely Chinese (3%). 54% are Taiwanese and 40% are both.

Some 55% support Ma's handling of the cross-strait relationship, with 29% satisfied. Just 41% believe that the cross-strait agreements are beneficial to Taiwan, 25% say not beneficial, 19% have no position. 59% say Ma leans too close to China.

What it really means is that Ma has done a good job of positioning himself as a safely centrist politician -- at least 70% of the public is pro-independence, which means that 30% are not, yet Ma got 51% of the vote.   Lots of pro-KMTers are pro-independence. There was a steady stream of complaints from the public about Ma being to close to China even before the election, but Ma still won.

As I've noted before, the "Taiwanese identity" includes the KMT and thus, when people identify themselves as "Taiwanese" they are not identifying themselves as potential pan-Green voters or potential pro-independence types (more people are "Taiwanese" than support independence) or Taiwan nationalists or anything else reflecting the fantasies of certain types on the pro-Taiwan side (note how the score for the solely Taiwanese identity falls when three choices are offered). As I said before, I suspect that being "Taiwanese" is a kind of not- identity -- in this case, a large part of the "Taiwanese" identity is not-China in the way that Canada is a not-America. The "positive" identity: what being Taiwanese/Taiwan/ROC means is still being worked out.

Thus when Wu Po-hsiung goes to Beijing and says "One Country, Two Areas" that is rhetoric locals have been listening to their whole lives from people like Wu, whose behavior, after all, is part of their 'Taiwanese' identity -- indeed, if TVBS' numbers are right, about 40% of the population has a Taiwanese-Chinese identity that is congenial to if not compatible with, just that position. How can it threaten them? The constant flow of such propaganda has normalized the presence of such statements in everyday discourse and thus they can't threaten the "negative consensus" on what Taiwan is not because Wu didn't bluntly and directly say that Taiwan = China ("overlapping territories" under the One China rubric) and in any case has no power to make a formal change in the relationship. Plus ca change...

Moreover, consider an even simpler interpretation -- at any given time 50-55% disapprove of the President and 25-30% approve. This seems like something close to the "natural level" of satisfaction with the President in Taiwan irrespective of what is asked.
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DiPoll

China Times Poll, Wed, Dec 14:

1. If you were to vote tomorrow, which of the three following tickets would you support?

• KMT Ma-Wu ticket      41.3%
• DPP Tsai-Su ticket       36.8%
• PFP Soong-Lin ticket    8.4%
• Undecided                   13.5%

China Times Poll, Thursday, Dec 15:

1. If you were to vote tomorrow, which of the three following tickets would you support?

• KMT Ma-Wu ticket    40.0%
• DPP Tsai-Su ticket     39.0%
• PFP Soong-Lin ticket   8.0%

The China Times poll has had Ma up by six or so since I can remember. If it is within shouting distance of being correct, the smear of Tsai as stealing government money has backfired badly on the KMT.

Been chatting with people quite a bit. My unscientific poll says that most people think Tsai is going to win.

The United Daily News poll from the 14th has Ma up by ~7. The last Apple Daily poll from the 10th has Ma up by more than 7 with 29.6% undecided. I'd love to understand how Apple generates these numbers.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Antipolls

Various polls collected by Now News. All the pro-KMT polls show a big lead for Ma and growing. The pro-DPP Liberty Times poll has Tsai ahead. Apple Daily, widely regarded as in-between the two camps, has Ma up by the biggest lead. In the prediction market as of this moment, for who will win, Tsai is ~$51.00, Ma ~$36.00, in the prediction of the victory margin, Tsai is up by 7 over Ma.

I think I need a Beerlao to handle all this conflicting data.

ADDED: As my friend Ben Goren observed: "We essentially won't know shit until election night and the shooting the day before."
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Survey Madness: Gries Gun at the DPP, Taiwanese won't fight

The Taipei Times ran a story on Peter Gries' survey, whose press conference on Friday for his "non-partisan" survey I had put in my list of events....

In the survey conducted by Peter Gries, director of the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for US-China Issues, Ma’s support rate was 34 percent, while Tsai was on 26 percent.

Support for People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) was at 10 percent, while undecided voters accounted for 30 percent, the survey showed.

.....

The survey, conducted between Nov. 17 and Monday with a sample size of 500 people and a 6.5 percent margin of error, used an Internet survey methodology to avoid biases associated with telephone and face-to-face polls, he said.

I think, if you've been paying attention to the zillion election surveys I've posted so far, you can see that this one is an outlier. Looks like a typical case of academic not knowing the lay of the land, parachuting in, and reporting to us poor benighted people on the ground here that he has found the Holy Grail [CORRECTION: Gries says he is a visiting scholar. See his comments below]. The 8 point spread in this survey exceeds almost any of the recent surveys of even the most shamelessly pro-KMT papers (when was the last time you saw a local survey of this election that generated a 30% "don't know"?).

Tip: Gries advertised his survey as "non-partisan." When something Taiwanish advertises itself as neutral or non-partisan, it is almost always going to wind up pro-KMT.  When I saw the term "non-partisan" I just started laughing, knowing what the poll would say.

The major problem here was that the Taipei Times should have ignored this or trashed it. It was wrong to give this any credence whatsoever.

Above are two slides from Friday's presentation. Gries used an internet survey methodology whose innate biases he attempted to correct using a method called sample matching. The purpose of sample matching is to overcome the fact that different modes of survey (phone, face-to-face, internet) are answered differently by different people. Scholars who use such methods argue that sample matching enables them to overcome the self-selection bias -- the people who take internet polls are different from people who do not, and they choose to take the poll, they are not cold called as in a phone survey. For a look at this kind of methodology in political surveys, see this 2007 paper. Fundamentally, it is quite true that an internet survey avoids the biases associated with phone surveys. It does this by introducing different biases.....

Because the number of respondents with education was low, Gries had to give them greater weight in the poll. Based on what?

Note further that YouGov is a private firm and its claims about its methodology should be taken with the skepticism appropriate to any corporate advertisement.

Of course, Gries does not know WHO took the internet survey in Taiwan. So this is a survey of ghosts.

Finally, Peter Enav of AP, at Friday's presentation, wisely asked Gries if this was a survey of likely voters. Gries responded that the number of people who responded as likely voters is so low that he didn't dare say it was a survey of likely voters.

So, basically, Gries flew into Taipei and put up this "non-partisan" survey of ghosts which he knew perfectly well was an unrepresentative agglomeration of numbers and which he also could not say was a survey of likely voters -- or anything else worth knowing.

So what was the purpose of a "non-partisan" survey that shows Ma up by 8 using a for-profit platform? I think the question answers itself.

The other fascinating survey that came out this week was even more bogus. This was the widely circulated AP story on a poll which claimed that Taiwanese youth were losing their appetite to fight China. Zounds!

A survey published this week by Taiwan's Commonwealth Magazine appears to confirm that Taiwan's process of demilitarization is rapidly gaining steam. Based on a sample of students aged 12 to 17, it found only 38.7 percent would be ready to see either themselves or a family member fight if a new war broke out, while 44.3 percent would not. The remainder had no opinion.

........

The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the survey, saying it had no information on the way it was conducted. Commonwealth said it was carried out by mail between Oct. 17 and Nov. 4 and that the 3,715 responses represented a 74 percent return on the 5,054 questionnaires it sent.

This one is also a stinker. The numbers are absurd. First, it is a survey of 12 to 17 yr olds. A 12 yr old isn't capable of forming a meaningful opinion on a complex moral question of this nature. But second, the numbers are ridiculous. 5054 surveys mailed out and 74% mailed back within two weeks? For crying out loud! I want these guys' addresses for my own surveys! Seriously, in a typical mail survey months are necessary, not weeks and the researcher usually sends out follow up surveys or requests because the initial response rate is in the teens or twenties (for example). Perhaps there is some key bit of missing/misunderstood information not in the piece (they were handing out a free Porsche with each returned survey, it wasn't a mail survey, etc).

Commonwealth hosts an English version of the story here and the whole thing appears to be typical media bullshit slanted hyping. The item appears in a survey of teens. Here's the actual quote:

"Would you be willing to see yourself or family members head to battle if the country went to war with another country?" 39 percent answered they were "willing" or "very willing," but even more (44 percent) said they were unwilling. (See Tables 1-4)

Follow the link to the Table if you like. The question did not ask the students if THEY THEMSELVES would be willing to fight but included "family members." Raise your hand if you think a question that asks about Dear Old Dad going off to fight the PLA is the same in the students' minds as themselves going off to fight to protect Mom, Dad, and Sis. Nor did it ask anything specific -- "If China attacked Taiwan...." "If China attacked Taiwan and the US and Japan backed Taiwan...." "If the Philippines and Taiwan clashed over the Spratlys...."

The AP article says the students were losing their appetite for fighting China. The question does not even ask about China!!!!!

The sad part is, that this is an important issue and should be explored, especially with the growing China threat. But this isn't the right peg to hang this story on.

Of course, it is all meaningless anyway. People say one thing when there is no threat, and quite another when it materializes. As a wise observer pointed out to me, in 1933 the Oxford Union held a famous debate in which it resolved that "this house will not fight for King and country." There was no shortage of recruits from that house when WWII in Europe began six years later.....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Presidential Election: The Journalist on AIT Polls and WSJ on the Election

In Liu Shih-chung's summary of trends in the election in the Taipei Times today, there was this nugget:

A month later, the most recent polls — including those of the KMT-favoring China Times and TVBS — have shown a tie between Ma and Tsai. Other polls released by the Future Exchange Institution and the American Institute in Taiwan showed Tsai is leading Ma by 2 percent to 3 percent. Tsai and her DPP also garnered more support in areas traditionally considered KMT strongholds, such as central Taiwan and Hakka constituencies. Underground gambling circles have also cut their bets for Ma’s lead over Tsai from 600,000 votes to 200,000 votes.

The article Liu references in The Journalist on AIT presidential election polls is here. It seems odd that the US representative office commissioned its own polls on the election outcome, but no doubt they are as depressed as I am looking at the weird poll data that sprawls across the media like a deep-sea monster suddenly flung onto the deck of a fishing boat. If anyone out there at AIT could contact me to explain why they have their own polls, I'd be grateful.

Not only does The Journalist observe in the AIT poll Tsai is up 2-3 points over Ma, but also that AIT polls correctly predicted the outcomes in '00, 04, and 08. Tsai's upward trend has also caught the attention of the international media, with Paul Mozur scribing in WSJ:

Mr. Ma also is seen as making missteps on the issue of China, especially last month, when he proposed talks over a peace pact with Beijing within the decade that would go beyond the current economic rapprochement. Last week at a Foreign Correspondent's Club news conference, Mr. Ma's chief campaign strategist, King Pu-tsung admitted the campaign had failed to anticipate how sensitive the pact would be.

Meanwhile, Ms. Tsai seems to be increasingly gaining the support of independent voters with a campaign focused on social issues and growing Taiwan's domestic economy with policy points such as reducing restrictions against foreign professionals, growing the social safety net, and subsidies for farmers. Ms. Tsai also has made some inroads with the business community, traditionally a Kuomintang stronghold, with comments about China seen as more moderate than the platform of her pro-independence party.

Also kudos to Mozur for correctly labeling China as the source of tension and for pointing out that Tsai wants better relations with Beijing, thus avoiding regurgitating the pro-Beijing frames that so often dominate media discourse on Taiwan:

Ms. Tsai has said she supports improved relations with China, but her party backs independence from Beijing and China has historically responded negatively to DPP rule of Taiwan.

For an example of how not to do it, see the BBC piece I discuss here.
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Hoy! Poll Oy!

Apple Daily poll above. Weirdly, Ma seems to have increased his percentage and suffered only a tiny drop in his lead despite the steady drumbeat of bad news that is killing him in other polls -- the prediction market has Tsai over Ma 48-44 when asked who will win, as of this writing. This Apple Daily poll appears to be badly wrong. The poll also shows Ma with double digit leads in the Taipei basin, Taoyuan/Hsinchu/Miaoli, and central Taiwan. Say what? Because the Taipei Times reported today that the internal polls showed Tsai ahead in central Taiwan.

Recent surveys showed that the support rate of DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in central Taiwan — Greater Taichung, Changhua County and Nantou County, which is sandwiched between the Jhuoshuei and Da-an rivers — has surpassed that of KMT candidate President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a senior aide of Tsai’s campaign said.

The Chinese-language magazine the Journalist on Wednesday quoted an anonymous KMT official as saying that an undisclosed KMT survey showed that Tsai is leading Ma in central Taiwan by 10 percentage points, and by 2 to 3 percentage points overall. The aide also said that Tsai had overtaken Ma in central Taiwan, a region with about 2.4 million voters.

The NCCU prediction market, broken out by area, also has Tsai up slightly on Ma in the central area  [MT error: that is only for the Hakka vote]. UDN also put forward a poll of younger voters (20-29) which had Tsai and Ma tied at 39 apiece.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

TAPOD -- Damned Odd =UPDATEDX2=

Several media organs passed around a Taiwan Association for Pacific Ocean Development (TAPOD) poll.... here's the TT:

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) holds a 7.3 point lead over Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), a poll by the Taiwanese Association for Pacific Ocean Development (TAPOD) showed yesterday.

....

You said the poll appeared to refute analysts who said the DPP had recently gained momentum following several successful campaign rallies and fund-raising events, and that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was reeling after Ma’s talk of a possible peace pact with China.

Ma up by 7.3? Even the TVBS poll only has Ma up by six. Moreover Ma is downward trending in the prediction market this week (though he picked up yesterday) and bookies are now giving even odds with a spread of 300K votes. Further, no other poll has Tsai below 33 -- TAPOD has her at 30, meaning her support has been reduced to core pan-Greens. This poll is thus an outlier. Why?

The question about who will you vote for does not ask likely voters as other polls do. Instead, it asks the entire sample and gives a range of choices. -- not vote, protest vote (fei piao), wait and see, etc, along with Ma, Tsai, and Soong. Interestingly, Ma remains at 38, roughly where he is in other polls, and Soong at 9.7%, almost exactly where he is in other polls. The only real difference is the unusual gap here between Tsai's TAPOD numbers and those of other polls.

When asked who would win, 47% said Ma, just 26.9% said Tsai. In the prediction market, Tsai is about 2 points up on Ma. At the moment.... bookies have them even with a tiny spread. But in TAPOD the margin for predicted outcome is 20%.

Is this poll reliable?

On the instant replay:

You said the poll appeared to refute analysts who said the DPP had recently gained momentum following several successful campaign rallies....

Yep, it sure does refute that contention that everyone else is making.... what a coincidence, eh? If I were paranoid, I might think it was supposed to do that.

The differing sample is not mentioned in TT and other stories (FocusTaiwan). FocusTaiwan says that the TAPOD Sept poll had Ma ahead of Tsai by a point. So did GVSRC's public data at that time -- the private data had Tsai ahead of Ma.

The head of TAPOD is a former Vice MAC Chair from the Chen era (a speech). Its website in Chinese (台灣太平洋發展協會). Here is the dataset for its poll.

UPDATED: China Times poll for Nov 7 has Ma up by 4. Newly released Nov 4 TVBS poll has Ma only up by 3. Your guess is as good as mine as to how reliable this TAPOD poll is.

UPDATE 2: I have heard that Michael Ying-lung You, the head of TAPOD, like many other DPP members who make negative public comments about Tsai, was angry that he was not on the party list. I was told but can't verify, that TAPOD's funding comes from Wu Tse-chia (吳子嘉), another Tsai basher and chairman of 美麗島電子報 (http://www.my-formosa.com/) -- a website publishing political analysis and highly critical of the DPP.

As a friend put it, the fundamental reason behind all this is the DPP's lingering factionalism. We get this every election -- ike Yang Chiu-hsiung leaving the DPP in Kaohsiung for the mayoral election last year because he couldn't wait his turn. It is also fallout of the ridiculous "reform" of the legislature several years ago that reduced the number of seats, more heavily burdened legislators, and left fewer posts to be handed to party members.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Poll Light

Be sure to ride your bike over the edge to get the full experience.

Lots of numbers flying around. This poll from the (pan-Green) Taiwan Brain Trust has Tsai ahead of Ma 35.9-32.2, with Soong far behind at 13. Head to head, it still has her up 3 over Ma. A (pan-Blue) China Times Poll has Ma ahead of Tsai by four, 41-37, with Soong a distant 10.  TVBS, rabidly pan-Blue, has Ma up 6 on Tsai 39-33, with Soong again at 9.

Meanwhile Ma continues to slide in the prediction market. He's at under 48 as of this writing, with Tsai flirting with 50.

Speaking of polls, AP picked up the tale of apparent KMT pressure on Global Views to end its polling since it showed Tsai up 4-6% on Ma. When interviewed, Tai Li-an, the director of its political polls, would not come right out and say it, but readers can connect the dots themselves.
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Daily Links:

• Fukushima: fission still ongoing.
• Taiwan cup cycling festival: home
• Bala Daily: Commence Firearms inspection!
• Hiking on Yangmingshan
• Confucius Institutes: corrupting US universities on a massive scale
• China is awesome and its ascendance inevitable, which is why its wealthy are setting up bolt-holes in other nations. Wait a second....
• Michael Stanton's excellent op-ed on the KMT legislator suing a journalist.
• Shelly Rigger discusses why Taiwan matters on a radio show.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Global Views: Ma close over Tsai

A panorama of clouds across the central mountain range before the arrival of typhoon Nanmodol in Taichung yesterday, taken at the Taichung HSR station around 11:00 am (original size). 

Global Views' latest survey on the Ma-Tsai election bout is in, dated Aug 23. In head to head combat, it has Ma 39.6% to 38.1% with 77% of those surveyed responding. 23% are playing coy. However, with PFP Chairman and former KMTer James Soong in the race, Ma beats Tsai 35.1% to 33.9%, essentially the same gap between them. This is a slightly different outcome then several other recent polls where Tsai's support falls more than Ma's when Soong is in play. Tsai crushes Soong head to head.

These numbers are more interesting. The idea that Ma, who was busted downloading government funds into his private accounts but given a get-out-of-jail-free card by the court, has more integrity and is more trustworthy than Tsai strikes me as laughable. Tsai's high marks for crisis management are probably reflective of Ma's low marks for crisis management, and of course Tsai stomps Ma on protecting Taiwan's interests. I'd be curious to know how Tsai's lead in explaining things clearly is helping her at the polls. I wish pollsters did a better job of breaking out the data....

The figures for "Maintain the Status Quo" are intriguing. First, Ma gets high marks in that area, which explains why even though voters don't think he'll work for Taiwan's interests, they continue to vote for him. Yet both Ma and Soong are lifelong unificationist politicians (knowing that, who are the freaks who think Ma and Soong are pro-independence and Tsai pro-unification? Somebody must be having fun with the survey). This widespread and deeply ingrained idea that Ma is a status quo politician is in part a tribute to KMT messaging, but also in part to the confidence that many Taiwanese have that their country cannot be sold out.

I still don't see any reason Ma will lose in 2012. But would be interested to hear some thoughtful comments on the matter.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Latest China Times & DPP Polls

The latest China Times poll offers two versions, one with Soong, one without. In Ma vs Tsai, Ma is up 33.5 to 29.2. Adding Soong, it's 33.0 to 28.6 to 10.0.

A poll in which 30% of respondents don't answer isn't very useful.

UDN editorialized on the situation a few days ago:

President Ma Ying-jeou was campaigning around rural areas when he accidentally found out that a fire had erupted in his backyard -- James Soong's tiny People First Party (PFP) -- which used to be a solid part of the ruling KMT-led "pan-blue" camp -- has vowed to win enough seats to form a legislative caucus and even Soong himself has hinted that he might enter the presidential race.

......

Unfortunately, Ma has not perceived that the real problem facing him is not the PFP defection. Rather, it is the issue of political wisdom and campaigning schemes.

Ma has not perceived the crisis that he is losing the trust of some two million "pan-blue" voters, who, according to the PFP, are wavering in their support, providing nutrition to milk the PFP's defection bid.

Another Ma crisis is that he has spent most of his time on "low politics," or economic and social welfare issues at the grassroots level, instead of "high politics" that relate to political power and morale on the national level.

......

He may not know that he is risking losing the votes of some two million potential waverers, who include the "social elite," opinion leaders and his former staunch supporters.

Instead of worrying about the price of rice wine, Ma should spend more time sorting out why he is losing the trust of swing voters.

Soong is not Ma's problem. Ma's problem is that he does not know what exactly disappointed voters are fretting about with regard to his presidency.

The issue for UDN is Ma's campaign, not his policies. But UDN vastly exaggerates; there aren't 2 million PFP votes out there; the last time the PFP got that many votes was in 2001; by 2004 this had fallen to 1.3 million. In the most recent election the KMT recouped almost all the votes, seats, and politicians it had lost to the PFP. Disaffected Blues might vote Soong, but surely everyone must know a Soong vote is a wasted vote. Perhaps the China Times poll above shows he'll attract merely the anti-Ma Blue votes that wouldn't have gone for Ma anyway.

The DPP released poll results this week that have Ma and Tsai neck and neck at 49.9 and 50.1. Believe at your own risk.
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Daily Links

• UN serves Chinese expansionism: UNESCAP lists Taiwan ECFA as Taiwan, POC
• China is now Brazil's biggest trade partner. Meanwhile the US is going to go into another recession. Great policy move there, Washington, way to look forward. That will really help us curb China's influence. 
• Japan criticizes China's completely unnecessary naval build up, Beijing lashes out.
• The KMT's policy at present is to subsume Taiwan's culture into Chinese culture as "Chinese culture with Taiwanese characteristics." It is also attempting to absorb Taiwanese heroes into the KMT Whig history narrative.
• Russian permafrost to shrivel by a third by 2050 -- releasing all that trapped methane. 

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Polls: Tsai Down Big =UPDATED= TVBS says neck and neck

The initial rush has now evaporated and Tsai looks like the usual DPP candidate facing the KMT juggernaut. UDN and Apple both came out with polls this week. According to UDN, Ma now leads Tsai 45-27, changed from the 37-36 lead Tsai had less than three weeks ago. According to the Apple Daily, the gap is 53-31. In the latter poll, about 45% are satisfied or very satisfied with Ma, and 33% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Last week I blogged on the Taiwan Brain Trust poll and thought that Ma couldn't have taken a giant upward bound in satisfaction in the last three weeks but the Apple Daily poll signals that he might well have.

TVBS Update: On the other hand, a commenter noted that the May 19 TVBS poll has Ma and Tsai at 45-44, respectively. Another commenter reassured that the prediction market at NCCU also has them neck and neck.

UPDATED: Comments say "no way!"

UPDATED II: My friend points out: "What happened was, Ma started campaigning."

Maddog sent useful links on the pan-Blue media, though Apple is not pan-Blue.

May 19, 2011 NOWnews article (title below):
Don't believe this UDN BS: 2012大選選情　媒體民調：馬英九45%、蔡英文27% http://tinyurl.com/5w3a596 #TheBoysWhoCriedWolf
Pro-blue surveys get it all wrong:
Flashback to 2006: "[Pro-Chinese KMT] media surveys about Taipei election all wrong" http://is.gd/PPYWf1
Another flashback to 2006: "[Pro-Chinese KMT] media surveys about Kaohsiung election all wrong" http://is.gd/ds4FHO
Talking Show screenshot:
Flashback to 2009: Pro-Chinese KMT surveys about Yilan election all wrong http://is.gd/EUqqgK
Talking Show screenshot:
Another flashback to 2009: Pro-Chinese KMT surveys about Taoyuan election all wrong http://is.gd/rFvG3A
TVBS poll vs. 2010 municipal election results (all via Taipei Times):
Nov. 7, 2010 survey by pro-blue TVBS said Chen Chu would get "41%" of the vote http://is.gd/gSt4TS Actual tally: 52.8% http://is.gd/SeHXtt
Nov. 4, 2010 survey by pro-blue TVBS said Wm. Lai would get "47%" of the vote http://is.gd/XQo58F Actual tally: 60.41% http://is.gd/QBIov1
Nov. 2, 2010 TVBS survey said Su Jia-chyuan would get "43%" of the vote http://is.gd/My2hkT Actual tally: 48.88% http://is.gd/acLYdg

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Daily Links:

• Foreigners compete in a Taiwanese speech contest. Awesome. Via Mad Minerva. 
• VOA program on Taiwan, links start here.
• AEI's Michael Mazza critical of Ma in Taipei Times.
• Kastner rounds up the fraying defense ties between Taiwan and the US. Not much you don't already know, but Steve Tsang has some good comments at the end.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Taiwan Brain Trust Poll Outlier?

The Taipei Times reported on a Taiwan Brain Trust Poll (Chinese lang press release) that gave some strange numbers which called into question its trustworthiness....first the numbers on sovereignty...

While 47.3 percent of the public think cross-strait exchanges over the past three years have not negatively impacted Taiwan’s sovereignty, 40 percent believe that there has been a severe erosion of sovereignty following the cross-strait exchanges initiated by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration since 2008, according to a survey released by the Taiwan Brain Trust yesterday.

Sorting through the spin, it shows that 40% of the population, roughly corresponding to the core group of light and deep green DPP supporters, thinks Ma has eroded the island's sovereignty. This is from a pan-Green camp think tank. It doesn't exactly correspond with my experience, but then my own experience is only selective and anecdotal.

The weirdness of this survey was signaled by its finding on Ma:

The poll, coming just days before the Ma administration marks three years in power, indicated that Ma’s approval rate stood at 40.2 percent, while his disapproval rate remained at 48.3 percent.

Consider the recent TVBS and Global Views Survey Research Center polls from April, which I wrote about a few weeks ago:

Good news for the DPP as Ma's poll numbers, which peaked briefly in Jan, are appearing to return to their more natural level of 32.9%, as the latest Global Views poll indicates. Dissatisfaction with Ma is now at 56%. This is the third straight month of slumping numbers for the President, so perhaps we've established a trend. Similarly, the numbers from the TVBS poll from the first week in April were 30% satisfied and 50% dissatisfied...

Surely Ma hasn't jumped 8 points in approval in the last couple of weeks. It seems that the sample used by the Taiwan Brain Trust polling company is out of synch with the rest of the nation.

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Daily Links:

• Homophobe afraid kids might catch Teh Gay has letter published in Taipei Times. Once again, we must ask why the letters section publishes such arrant nonsense.
• Forumosa users, Maoman wants you to take a short survey.
• Another hard hitting editorial on ECFA: numbers don't look good.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Latest TVBS Poll

The latest TVBS poll on the Ma-Tsai race in 2012 is out. Don't be distracted; the legislative election is at least as important; I'm looking forward to the polling on that. Among likely voters, Ma leads 43-42 with 15% undecided. TVBS generally underestimates pan-Green support so it is quite interesting that things are so close.

The chart above shows the breakdown by age group. Among younger voters Tsai has a crushing advantage, but Ma's strength is in the group most like to vote, the 40-60 cohorts. As one observer noted, that is also the last group that grew up during the days when the island's educational system was nothing but pro-China brainwashing. It is also the group most likely to be employed in the strongly pro-KMT bureaucracy and gov't businesses. The young face under- and unemployment, by contrast.

Further down, the chart notes that among self-identified independents Tsai leads Ma 39-33, but it should be noted that the "independents" often contain a disproportion of closeted pan-Green supporters. For those of you who thought Tsai would appeal to women, Ma leads among femmes 45-37, while Tsai wins with men, 48-41. Geographically support is predictable, with Ma crushing in the north and Tsai leading in the south, with the central area up for grabs at 42-41 in favor of Ma. Jason Hu's mayoralty of Taichung has not enthused voters, who are gradually developing a taste for more than endless kowtowing of government to land developers and massive government debt. I suspect that after the way voters were played by KMT propaganda in the mayoral elections after the KMT gangster assassination attempt, there are going to be some votes to balance out "erroneous" votes in favor of the KMT.

"Ethnically" the vote also breaks out predictably. Among self-identified Taiwanese Minnan voters, Tsai rules 46-40, Ma has Taiwanese Hakkas at 50-39, and of course, the "mainlanders" -- whose ethnicity is entirely a construction of KMT propaganda and Taiwanese history -- where he has 71% of the vote. 
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

More Polls....and the environment

A couple of polls out: Global Views has its most recent party ID tracking poll out. More people say they are KMT/lean KMT than are DPP/lean DPP. With such a large number of people saying they are "independents" -- 28% it is likely that the poll vastly underestimates the number of pan-Greens.

The KMT news organ reports in English on the DPP candidates versus Ma Ying-jeou:

According to a survey commissioned by the Taipei-based Broadcasting Corporation of China, President Ma Ying-jeou is not a shoo-in to win a second term. If President Ma represents the KMT, and Tsai Ing-wen the DPP in the 2012 Presidential election, the survey shows that President Ma would have a support rating of 36.35%, and Tsai Ing-wen 34.48%. If President Ma represents the KMT, and Su Tseng-chang the DPP in the 2012 Presidential election, the survey shows that President Ma would receive a support rating of 36.35%, and Su Tseng-chang 34.55%. In either case, 20% of the voters remained undecided.

Undecided is an enormous number of voters and is likely to include more pan-Greens than pan-Blues. It is still early, but if these numbers are anywhere near valid, it is good news for the good guys.


The Kuokuang Petrochemical complex in Changhua was the subject of a visit by all three candidates the other day. Ma was silenced and then later heckled. But recall that the Kuokuang project was approved by the DPP when current Presidential hopeful Su Tseng-chang was premier. According to the KMT report, Su humbly apologized for that decision. The fact that Tsai was reared in the neoliberal religion while Su is a consummate developmentalist state politician means that the environment will get no more than lip service in this election.

As a friend of mine noted, the opposition to Kuokuang may be vocal at the moment, but if the locals were seriously polled, you'd probably find that local supporters of the project outnumbered the opposition. I have biked from time to time in that area along the coast south of Lukang in Changhua and down through Yunlin. It is one of the most desolate, depressed areas of Taiwan, in my opinion, rather like the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby. It could certainly use a boost, as the Taipei Times admonished today:

Anti-Kuokuang sentiment fomented when people became suspicious that the Ma administration had lost its neutrality and decided to push ahead with the project even before the Environmental Impact Assessment had been completed. Public Construction Commission Minister Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) has expressed concern about the impact of the plant on water and soil conservation, and the potential worsening of the problem of land subsidence, which may even compromise the safety of the Yunlin stretch of the High Speed Rail. His opinion has not changed. This is something that should be taken very seriously.

We have learned from last year’s fires at Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s sixth naphtha cracker and the current nuclear incident in Japan that just because a government says something does not make it true. People are more sensitive now about the possibility of an environmental disaster. If the government does give the go-ahead for the plant, can Ma guarantee the decision will not come back to haunt Taiwan?

Cities in Changhua County and Fangyuan Township (芳苑) need economic regeneration, but is Kuokuang the answer? Should the plant turn into an environmental nightmare, could local people cope?

For more information on land subsidence and other issues surrounding this plant, see this post I wrote a while back. But the cold hard fact is that the number of large developmentalist state projects like this killed for environmental reasons is infintesimal. Since both parties have approved many similar developmentalist state projects around the island that ran into opposition from environmentalists, it does not appear that the environment is really going to be a huge issue in this election -- the mud from these projects sticks to everyone.

But anything could happen.....
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Daily Links:

• Jens Kastner in Asia Times says ECFA critics too quick off the mark.
• New book out on Taiwan-Japan relations in the Imperial era.
• KMT once again pushing the myth that Chinese gold saved Taiwan's economy. I have discussed why this is 'gwash before here. 
• J Michael Cole writes on why a partial missile drawdown by China isn't worth much to Taiwan. But it could be a major coup for the KMT in the coming elections.  
• Meanwhile, Randplanet still hasn't discovered the concepts of conservation or technological progress. Or that wind machines don't render useless all the land they sit on. Is no one submitting sane and sensible letters to the Taipei Times?

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.