(31 Jan 2019) After Taiwan's ruling party lost a suite of midterm local elections in November, public support for President Tsai Ing-wen fell to its lowest ever with about 24 percent voicing approval.
But it suddenly jumped 10 points in January after Tsai shot back at her counterpart in China for suggesting the two sides unify.
Taiwanese widely welcomed Tsai's rebuttal to Chinese President Xi Jinping's Jan. 2 speech because they too disagreed.
Xi suggested that the two sides unify as "one country, two systems." China describes its rule over Hong Kong the same way, saying the former British colony has a degree of local autonomy.
Most Taiwanese prefer today's self-ruled democracy, personal freedoms and unique cultural identity, according to opinion surveys and interviews done this month.
The tit-for-tat between leaders reminded many people of those preferences, scholars say, showing that China has little hope of annexing Taiwan right away despite military muscle-flexing and squelching of Taiwanese foreign diplomacy.
"I think the 'one country, two systems' proposed by Xi Jinping is a total scam," said Kuo Lin-han, 26, a Chinese Culture University student in Taipei.
After Xi's speech, Tsai held several press conferences in Taipei to reject the Chinese leader's idea and vent against any two-way dialogue on the condition that both sides belong to a single China.
Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the think tank Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies said there is no democracy in Hong Kong and that proves China's arrangement of "One Country, two systems" didn't work well in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is totally controlled by China, Yang added.
In the opinion survey published on Jan. 21 by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation showing 34.5 per cent of the 1,074 respondents gave Tsai a thumb up.
Yang thinks people in Taiwan want to endorse President Tsai's decisions for a good choice she made to challenge Beijing government over defending Taiwan's sovereignty.
Foundation polls also show that about two-thirds of Taiwanese have consistently rejected Xi's proposal of "one country, two systems"
Tsai won the presidency by a landslide in 2016 following widespread fear that the government of her predecessor, Nationalist Party-backed Ma Ying-jeou, had grown dangerously close to China in signing 23 two-way deals on trade, transport and investment.
But some people is less fearful and believes Xi's proposal of "One country, two systems" could help to boost local economy.
Taipei dried fruit vendor Yu Chen-ching, 65, agreed. "'One country, two systems' could bring more people in and out, and this is good," he said. "Otherwise, no one wants to visit Taiwan, and it's not good for the economy."
After the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan.
The victorious Communists have regarded Taiwan since then as a breakaway territory that must eventually be brought into the fold.
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