Jason of wandering to Tamshui offers a rare note of approval for a visiting foreign correspondent on his assessment of the mood of Taiwan residents toward the Mainland.:
Larry Johnson, a columnist covering Asia-Pacific Issues for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has returned from a two-month trip to Taiwan with some information that has been long-known to some but little-known to many: most young Taiwanese are either apathetic to China or support continuing a separate existence from their long-lost brothers across the strait.
Among his findings after speaking to young students around Taiwan:
"The younger generations will decide Taiwan’s future. And that decision will be of great concern to a United States that is obligated by treaty to provide for the defense of Taiwan. What are the attitudes of Taiwan’s young people toward reunification and mainland China?
To answer that question, I recently spent two months traveling throughout Taiwan, talking with young people from 13 to 30. Their answers, overall, show an attitude in stark contrast to the conciliatory attitude of Taiwan’s top political parties and suggest a much more forceful stand for independence, one that would bring Taiwan into sharp conflict with China.
I did formal interviews with 50 people, from Taipei, the modern capital in the north, to Tainan, the ancient capital in the south. My subjects, for the most part, were high school and university students but also included young workers and business people. The interviews were in English, which is widely spoken, and even when language was somewhat a barrier, many of the young people were still eager to express their views.
Of the 50 people, only six said they would like Taiwan to become part of mainland China."
First of all, kudos to Johnson for taking the time to interview people from all over Taiwan, not just Taipei, which skews blue. Most foreign journalists are either too lazy or too ignorant of the rest of the country to even bother asking themselves whether the other 90% feel the same way as a pampered university student with family business interests in China.
Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan
November 29th, 2005 at 1:27 am
Yes. Johnson’s conclusion is reasonable in his way, but for people with much deeper knowledge about Chinese history, they would interpret his findings differently. The reason that more Taiwanese young people support the independence of the island is mainly because there were born in Taiwan, and grew up in Taiwan. For them, Taiwan is their home while mainland is some place no different from a foreign country. But for those senior political and government officials, mainland maybe the place where they were born and grew up. Most of them had been living in mainland until around 1948-1949 when the Kuomintang Party fled to Taiwan. They have friends, relatives in mainland and for them, mainland is their home. So the argument is the longer Beijing waits, the more difficult it will be to reunite with Taiwan.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:36 am
In that case China better sends in the army now before Taiwan becomes another state of the USA. haha.
December 25th, 2005 at 1:31 am
Conducting the interviews only in English could have seriously skewed his results.