Taiwanese election, Jan 2016

[jaichind]

CommonWealth Magazine which does a very comprehensive annual poll (sort of like Pew) came out with interesting and bad numbers for Tsai. 

It has Tsai's approval/disapproval rating at 23.8/67.7


it also seems lower ratings for Tsai is increasing support for Unification

On the identiy issue of: Are you Taiwanese, Chinese or both we have


           Taiwanese     Chinese    Both   
2014       59.4            3.2        33.0
2015       61.9            4.6        28.2
2016       63.1            6.1        28.3
2017       61.6            6.9        28.2
2018       56.4            6.7        31.4


On the issue of Unification, Independence or status quo


          Independence       Independence       Status     Unification          Unification
               ASAP               as a goal                Quo        as a goal             ASAP
2014        5.57                   37.53                43.51           8.92               0.52
2015        8.59                   35.62                40.28           8.79               1.53
2016        6.27                   29.24                49.82           9.23               1.94
2017        6.13                   31.10                48.35           8.24               2.57
2018        4.76                   27.31                46.86         13.75               2.62


This is similar to the early of the the DPP Chen administration (2000-2008) where its bad start led to support for unification to rise and Independence to fall.    The Ma administration (2008-2016) also started with the 2008 crisis which made it unpopular and led to a surge in support for independence and decline in unification.   We are now seeing the same thing under the Tsai administration which is starting badly as well.

The good news for Tsai is that both Chen and Ma both recovered and won re-election in 2004 and 2012 respectively. 

The critical shift in unification-independence views was  the 2002-2006 period where Chen was able to bump up pro-Independence views with his provocative actions against the PRC knowing that he can go up to the line but over it and that the PRC will not attack.  So support for Independence increased during a DPP administration.  It does not seem that Tsai can replicate this mainly because the PRC economy of 2018 is around 4 times bigger than the PRC economy of 2002.  So the PRC of 2018 is 4 times more power than it was in 2002.  What Tsai is able to get away with respect to PRC is a lot more limited than Chen in 2002.