Taiwan's Desire for Unification With China Near Record Low as Tensions Rise

The Taiwan public's declining desire for political union with China fell further to a near-record low in the first half of 2022, the island's leading pollster said on Tuesday. In a biannual update to its surveys on core political attitudes in Taiwan, National Chengchi University's Election Study Center found only 1.3 percent of respondents wanted unification with mainland China "As soon as possible," while a similarly low 5.1 percent desired formal Taiwanese independence at the earliest possibility. On Tuesday, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou described as "Absurd" a recent public address by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who warned of "Dark clouds" and "Ferocious storms across the Taiwan Strait" if the island were to formally separate from the mainland. "The People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan and naturally has no right to represent the people of Taiwan in the international community," she said. The unification of Taiwan and China has been the political objective of the Chinese leadership for decades. The consistent polling out of Taiwan belies Beijing's argument that a political existence wholly independent from China is the desire and intention of only a small group of "Separatists" on the island. In the 10 years since Xi took power in Beijing, his nationalistic rhetoric and assertive policies toward Taiwan have contributed to a spike in Taiwanese desire for self-determination, as well as less association with their neighbor across the strait, the survey suggests.