HKU POP SITE releases the latest findings of people's appraisal of Tung Chee-Hwa and deceased Chinese leadersBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest findings of people's appraisal of merits and faults of Tung Chee-Hwa and some deceased Chinese leaders. Among them, the appraisals of Tung Chee-Hwa, Zhao Ziyang and Yang Shangkun are released online for the first time. Since 1995, POP has been tracking people's appraisal of these leaders, but our series on Chris Patten stopped in 1997, and that on Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chiang Kai Shek stopped in 2003. Figures were announced regularly via our newsletter "POP Express" at first, and are now published in our "POP Site" for easy reference. As a general practice, our latest figures have been weighted according to the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population obtained from the 2001 Population Census. People's appraisal of merits and faults of Tung Chee-Hwa and Chris Patten are summarized as follows:

* "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.

The latest survey conducted in late March revealed that, 40% of the respondents considered Tung to have accrued more faults than merits in the development of Hong Kong, while 19% found more merits than faults in Tung, and 30% said half and half. With regard to his merits, 31% attributed Tung's major contributions to his achievements in economic and livelihood aspects, while 27% opted for the political side. Meanwhile, 18% thought Tung had no contributions at all. When it came to his faults, 51% said his major faults lay in economic and livelihood aspects, 25% thought they were in the political aspect, and 4% said Tung had committed no faults. When asked to split Tung's merits and faults with 10 marks as the base, the average obtained was around 4.6 marks (merits) to 5.4 marks (faults).

As for Hong Kong people's appraisals of the merits and faults of some deceased Chinese leaders, the results in the recent 3 years are summarized as follows:

* "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.

According to our survey conducted in mid-March, those considering Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang have accrued more merits than faults in the development of China accounted for 76% and 58% respectively. For Yang Shangkun, 13% of the respondents thought he has accrued more faults than merits, 12% found more merits than faults in Yang, while 64% of the respondents had no idea. Looking at Hong Kong people's appraisals of these leaders from a macro perspective, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and Zhao Ziyang apparently has accrued more merits than faults, while Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai Shek and Yang Shangkun can all be classified as "half and half" (see per-poll figures in the POP Site).

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, analyzed, "The appraisal of leaders' merits and faults is still a sensitive issue in contemporary China, but it is an inescapable responsibility of the opinion researcher. The figures released by POP today should be quite representative of Hong Kong people's views, which may be different from that of the researcher, and definitely cannot represent the views of peoples in Taiwan and the Mainland. From the perspective of the Hong Kong people alone, it should be quite clear that Tung Chee-Hwa is judged to have accrued more faults than merits in respect to Hong Kong's development, compared to a half-half split for Chris Patten. In terms of China's development, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and Zhao Ziyang are judged to have accrued more merits than faults, while Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-Shek and Yang Shangkun are judged to be only half and half."

POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly. The date and time of our next release will be April 12, 2005, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest figures on the popularity of Acting CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.