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| Detailed Findings (Rating of the Top Ten Political Figures in Mainland China and Taiwan) |

The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan in March, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The surveys find that significant changes have occurred after Taiwan people elected their new president. On the awareness level, presidential candidate Hsieh Chang-ting joins the top ten list for the first time, while Li Peng and Lien Chan become forgotten. In terms of support rating, probably because of the more stable cross-strait relations, the popularity ratings of all political figures best known to Hong Kong people have increased, compared to 6 months ago. Many of them have even attained record high ratings since they first appeared on the list. Among them, President-elect Ma Ying-jeou made a rare and dramatic jump of 16.7 marks. Robert Chung, Director of POP, suggested, if governments on both sides of the Strait could make use of Hong Kong people's affinity for Ma, this could become a great opportunity to develop Hongkong-Taiwan relations. The sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.0 and 1.8 while the response rate of the rating survey is 66%.

Points to note:

* The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
* The sample size of the first stage naming survey is 1,026 successful interviews, not 1,026 x 65.7% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is 1,015 successful interviews, not 1,015 x 65.8% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* "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 +/-1.8 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the rating figures. In view of the error margins, one decimal place can be used when quoting these rating figures.
* 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 SITE today releases on schedule the latest ratings of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan. All the figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2007 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Survey conducted in late-March revealed that, among the ten most well-known political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, in terms of popularity rating, Wen Jiabao topped the list, attaining 78.3 marks. The 2nd to 5th ranks went to Hu Jintao, Zhu Rongji, Ma Ying-jeou and Wu Yi with respective scores of 77.2, 77.1, 74.9 and 74.0 marks. Jiang Zemin was placed at the 6th rank with 63.3 marks while Hsieh Chang-ting and Lee Teng-hui occupied the 7th and 8th ranks, attaining 41.1 and 40.9 marks correspondingly. The 9th and 10th ranks fell to Lu Hsiu-lien and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 35.0 and 25.8 marks. For this latest survey, Zeng Qinghong and Xi Jinping obtained support ratings of 61.2 and 57.8 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 76.3 marks, while that for the top 10 was 58.8 marks. As for the overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 18 calendar months are tabulated as follows:

The overall rankings in the past 18 months showed that nine political figures have been on the list for four times. They are Wen Jiabao in the top rank achieving an average rating of 76.1 marks, Zhu Rongji, Hu Jintao and Wu Yi who ranked 2nd to 4th, attaining 75.1, 73.6 and 71.2 marks correspondingly, Ma Ying-jeou and Jiang Zemin who ranked 5th and 6th with respective scores of 63.1 and 62.7 marks, while Lee Teng-hui, Lu Hsiu-lien and Chen Shui-bian at the 7th to 9th ranks, attaining 36.1, 31.7 and 21.9 marks correspondingly. Lien Chan, James Soong, Li Peng and Hsieh Chang-ting were listed for one time each, and occupied the 10th to 13th ranks.

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. Our purpose is to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. When "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007, it only contained significant events and popularity figures of the Chief Executive over the past few months. As of today, it contains a chronology of events starting from May 1, 2006, and many poll figures registered since January 1, 2006. Readers can now check on the results of 9 different polling items compiled by POP, including the popularity of the Chief Executive, the HKSAR government, and the Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system. In near future, the content of 「Opinion Daily」 will continue to expand, in order to promote the science of opinion polling.

In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the 「Opinion Daily」 feature page as soon as they are verified by POP, in order to provide readers with swifter and more accurate information.

In August 2007, POP began to include in its regular press releases a list of significant events which happened in between two surveys, so that readers can make their own judgment on whether these events have any effect on the ups and downs of the polling figures. This press release is no exception.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from September 17 to 21, 2007 while this survey was conducted from March 25 to 27, 2008. In between these two surveys, 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,"Significant changes have occurred after Taiwan people elected their new president. On the awareness level, presidential candidate Hsieh Chang-ting joins the top ten list for the first time, while Li Peng and Lien Chan become forgotten. In terms of support rating, probably because of the more stable cross-strait relations, the popularity ratings of all political figures best known to Hong Kong people have increased, compared to 6 months ago. Many of them have even attained record high ratings since they first appeared on the list. Among them, President-elect Ma Ying-jeou made a rare and dramatic jump of 16.7 marks. If governments on both sides of the Strait can make use of Hong Kong people's affinity for Ma, this may become a great opportunity to develop Hongkong-Taiwan relations. It should be noted that our 'Top 10 Cross-Strait Political Figures' only include 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 those figures on the list, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, we will release the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials on April 8, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm.

Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. 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 POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.

Since 2006, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is 「About HKUPOP」. In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.

Top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan survey

Two years after HKUPOP was established, in 1993, we began our regular surveys on Hong Kong people's views on different Taiwan issues. In July 1997, HKUPOP expanded its 「Top 5 Chinese leaders」 rating surveys which dates back to July 1995 to become 「Top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan」, in order to further study people's knowledge and opinions on cross-strait issues. HKUPOP believes that as long as people are concerned with certain issues, it should spare resources to conduct regular surveys on such issues. This has nothing to do with any political orientation, but is part of opinion researchers' social responsibility. In fact, not mentioning Hong Kong people's positions on patriotic issues and the nature of the Taiwan issue itself, in a modern liberal democratic society, the media and survey organizations regularly examine its own people's opinions and feelings towards other nations and races, beyond geographical and ethnic boundaries. We have explained the development of the 「Top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan」 surveys in our press releases of September 28, 2006, March 20 as well as September 27, 2007. Today, we post it again so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development.

• Four years after HKUPOP was established, in June 1995, we began our regular surveys on the ratings of top 5 Chinese leaders. The questions include Hong Kong people's recognition and extent of support towards cross-strait political leaders. In May 1997, shortly before Hong Kong's handover, the survey was changed from "Top 5" to "Top 10", and the results were released to public in June 1997 for the first time, whereas the ratings for "Top 5" survey also ended. From the beginning to its end, the "Top 5" survey was conducted once every two months. For the "Top 10" survey, its frequency was changed from once every two months in the beginning till October 1997, to once every four months to cope with the social conditions since then. Starting from March 2001, the frequency was changed again and the survey is now conducted once every six months.
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• Both "Top 5" and "Top 10" surveys are conducted in two stages. The question wordings are also identical. In the naming stage, the wordings used in the questionnaire are "Please name up to a certain number of contemporary political leaders in Mainland China and Taiwan that you are most familiar with." and multiple responses are allowed. In the rating stage, the question used is 「Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to XXX, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating absolutely supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate XXX?"


• Regarding sample size, from the beginning to the end, the sample size of "Top 5" survey was set at slightly over 500. As for the "Top 10" survey, the sample size from the beginning to January 2000 was set at slightly over 500. From May 2000 onwards, it was increased to at least 1,000.


• Our first findings of "Top 5" surveys in September 1996 or before as well as the findings of "Top 10" surveys in July 1997 or before were published in our newsletter POP Express. After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, the "Top 10" surveys were released online since April 2002. All previous findings published in our POP Express were also uploaded on-line in various formats. Yet, the "Top 5" surveys were never released online.

| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP |
| Detailed Findings (Rating of the Top Ten Political Figures in Mainland China and Taiwan) |