HKU POP releases survey on the popularity of cross-strait political figuresBack

To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of the University of Hong Kong has already released for public examination via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 44 regular rating surveys so far of CE CY Leung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data. POP intends to release the raw data of about 180 regular rating surveys of former CE Donald Tsang within a month, and then extend it to cover former CE CH Tung. Please stay tuned.

Moreover, because the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (HKIAPS) and POP are releasing almost parallel surveys of CE popularity, and because POP was recently criticized for producing findings different from that of HKIAPS back in May 2012, Robert Chung, the Director of POP repeated in the commentary of the last press release some of the points he made in his article published on 2 June 2012 entitled “Differences in Polls on CE-elect”, in order to facilitate the discussion on such differences. The article can be downloaded in full from http://hkupop.pori.hk/chinese/columns/columns125.html.

POP conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan between March and April, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to 6 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has not changed much. On the awareness level, Lien Chan has replaced Li Peng to re-enter the list, making our top 10 list a 6:4 split across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, among the top 10 figures, except for Lien Chan, the popularity ratings of all others have either significantly increased or decreased. Among them, that of Ma Ying-jeou has significantly dropped by 8.7 marks to his record low since 1999, probably due to his handling of the recent student movement in Taiwan. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji continues to rank 1st. Xi Jinping goes up two places to rank 2nd. Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao each drops one position to rank 3rd and 4th. Li Keqiang goes up one place to rank 5th. Lien Chan re-enters the list to rank 6th. Ma Ying-jeou drops three positions to rank 8th, Lee Teng-hui down one place to rank 9th, while Jiang Zemin and Chen Shui-bian remain at 7th and 10th respectively. It should be noted that our list of “top 10 cross-strait political figures” only includes those best known to the Hong Kong public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political figures may have very high or low support ratings, but they are excluded from the list because they are relatively less well-known. The maximum sampling error of all rating figures is +/-2.4 marks at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the rating survey is 67%.

Points to note:

[1] The address of the “HKU POP SITE” is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] The sample size of the first stage naming survey is 1,030 successful interviews, not 1,030 x 68.7% response rate. The sample size of the second stage rating survey is 1,002 successful interviews, not 1,002 x 66.7% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.4 at 95% confidence level”. Because POP introduced “rim weighting” in 2014, during the transition period, whether changes in various figures are beyond sampling errors are based on tests using the same weighting methods. That is, to test whether the first set of figures collected in 2014 is significantly different from that of the previous survey, both sets of data are rim weighted before testing, instead of using simple computation of the published figures.
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses “computerized random telephone survey” to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

POP today releases the latest findings of popularity of cross-strait political figures. From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to “rim weighting” based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-year 2013 and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

[6] Calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified.
[7] The figures shown in the “latest change” column of this press release have been tested after “rim weighting” data collected in this and last surveys. The structural effect of using the new weighting method is small, around -0.3 to +1.0 for rating figures, while statistical significance tests are not affected.

The research design of our “Top 10 political figures of Mainland China and Taiwan” has been explained in detail under “Survey Method” in our corresponding web site. The top political figures listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in late March. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Ma Ying-jeou, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. The 12 most frequently mentioned political figures were then entered into the second stage of the survey conducted between late March and early April, during which respondents were asked to rate each political figure in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 2 political figures in terms of recognition rate were dropped; the remaining 10 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 10 political figures. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since June 1997. Recent ratings of the top political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan are summarized as follows:

[8] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.4 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site. {} Number in square brackets indicates rankings.
[9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[10] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not listed.

Latest survey revealed that, among the ten most well-known political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, in terms of popularity rating, Zhu Rongji ranked first, attaining 68.7 marks. The 2nd to 5th ranks went to Xi Jinping, Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang with respective scores of 65.0, 64.5, 61.5 and 59.7 marks. Lien Chan, Jiang Zemin and Ma Ying-jeou occupied the 6th to 8th ranks with 53.5, 52.9 and 51.7 marks correspondingly. The 9th and 10th ranks fell to Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 38.3 and 23.4 marks. For this latest survey, Tsai Ing-wen and Wang Chin-ping obtained support ratings of 48.2 and 45.9 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 63.9 marks, while that for the top 10 was 53.9 marks. As for the overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 18 calendar months are tabulated as follows:

[11] “Average rating” is the average of all ratings obtained by political figures over the past 18 months.
[12] “Overall ranking” is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings.

The overall rankings in the past 18 months showed that eight political figures have been on the list for four times. Zhu Rongji ranked first, achieving an average rating of 70.3 marks, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao ranked 2nd and 4th, attaining 66.5, 63.3 and 62.9 marks correspondingly, Ma Ying-Jeou, Jiang Zemin, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian who ranked 5th to 8th with respective scores of 59.0, 53.3, 38.5 and 22.5 marks. Li Keqiang has been on the list for three times with 58.7 marks, ranked the 9th. Lien Chan and Li Peng have been on the list twice, ranked the 10th and 11th with respective scores of 51.1 and 38.9. James Soong has been on the list once with 45.7 marks and occupied the 12th place.

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”, to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey of some items was conducted from August 26 to 29, 2013 while the latest survey was conducted from March 28 to April 2, 2014. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Compared to 6 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has not changed much. On the awareness level, Lien Chan has replaced Li Peng to re-enter the list, making our top 10 list a 6:4 split across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, among the top 10 figures, except for Lien Chan, the popularity ratings of all others have either significantly increased or decreased. Among them, that of Ma Ying-jeou has significantly dropped by 8.7 marks to his record low since 1999, probably due to his handling of the recent student movement in Taiwan. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji continues to rank 1st. Xi Jinping goes up two places to rank 2nd. Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao each drops one position to rank 3rd and 4th. Li Keqiang goes up one place to rank 5th. Lien Chan re-enters the list to rank 6th. Ma Ying-jeou drops three positions to rank 8th, Lee Teng-hui down one place to rank 9th, while Jiang Zemin and Chen Shui-bian remain at 7th and 10th respectively. It should be noted that our list of ‘top 10 cross-strait political figures’ only includes those best known to the Hong Kong public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political figures may have very high or low support ratings, but they are excluded from the list because they are relatively less well-known. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of different figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our ‘Opinion Daily’.”

• April 15, 2014 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2 pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials