HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of top 10 political figures in Mainland China and TaiwanBack
| Press Release on October 8, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement Sponsored by a number of organizations but designed and conducted independently by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong, findings from the 2008 Legislative Council election exit poll is now available from the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) for public consumption. Due to the existence of some skeptical cases, POP has decided to eradicate all cases en bloc from polling stations which appear to contain skeptical cases. This means reducing the number of polling stations from 120 to 106, and reducing the number of successful cases from 9,706 to 8,755. POP regrets at such data loss. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract POP conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan in September, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The surveys find that compared to 6 months ago, significant changes have occurred in the list of top 10 political figures, mostly related to those in Taiwan. First, the popularity rating of Chen Shui-bian who used to stay at the bottom of the list has plunged 10 marks, down to 16 marks which is an extremely low score never occurred before in this exercise. Such a plunge is no doubt related to the corruption cases surrounding Chen's family. Second, Lu Hsiu-lien who normally ranks a bit higher than Chen Shui-bian has dropped out of the list because of her relatively low recognition rate. Third, the popularity of Ma Ying-jeou has also rapidly receded by 10 marks, after its jump last time. His relative ranking, however, only dropped one place. Wen Jiabao continues to top the list, he is the only person with an increase in popularity rating. Premier Wen now has almost 80 marks, his highest since he entered the list. The sampling errors of the rating survey registered fall between +/-1.0 and 1.6 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 1,003 successful interviews, not 1,003 x 63.6% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is 1,027 successful interviews, not 1,027 x 65.9% 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 +/-1.6 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures 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:
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 mid-September. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Ma Ying-jeou, Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, Chen Shui-bian and Jiang Zemin 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 in late-September, 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:
** Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not listed. [ ] Number in square brackets indicates rankings. # Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, 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. Survey conducted in late-September 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 79.7 marks. The 2nd to 5th ranks went to Zhu Rongji, Hu Jintao, Wu Yi and Ma Ying-jeou with respective scores of 75.0, 74.9, 69.7 and 64.5 marks. Jiang Zemin, Lien Chan and Li Peng occupied the 6th to 8th ranks with 58.9, 51.3 and 45.4 marks correspondingly. The 9th and 10th ranks fell to Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 38.8 and 15.6 marks. For this latest survey, Xi Jinping and Zeng Qinghong obtained support ratings of 63.3 and 63.0 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 72.8 marks, while that for the top 10 was 57.4 marks. As for the overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 18 calendar months are tabulated as follows:
^ Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not listed. # "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. They are Wen Jiabao in the top rank achieving an average rating of 77.5 marks, Zhu Rongji, Hu Jintao and Wu Yi who ranked 2nd to 4th, attaining 75.3, 74.6 and 71.6 marks correspondingly, Ma Ying-jeou, Jiang Zemin, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian who ranked 5th to 8th with respective scores of 64.5, 62.1, 37.6 and 21.1 marks. Lu Hsiu-lien has been on the list for three times with 31.9 marks and ranked the 9th. Lien Chan and Li Peng at the 10th and 11th rank, attaining 51.7 and 45.2 marks correspondingly. Hsieh Chang-ting was listed once, and occupied the 12th rank. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opinion Daily 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 March 25 to 27, 2008 while this survey was conducted from September 23 to 29, 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.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Commentary Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to 6 months ago, significant changes have occurred in the list of top 10 political figures, mostly related to those in Taiwan. First, the popularity rating of Chen Shui-bian who used to stay at the bottom of the list has plunged 10 marks, down to 16 marks which is an extremely low score never occurred before in this exercise. Such a plunge is no doubt related to the corruption cases surrounding Chen's family. Second, Lu Hsiu-lien who normally ranks a bit higher than Chen Shui-bian has dropped out of the list because of her relatively low recognition rate. Third, the popularity of Ma Ying-jeou has also rapidly receded by 10 marks, after its jump last time. His relative ranking, however, only dropped one place. Wen Jiabao continues to top the list, he is the only person with an increase in popularity rating. Premier Wen now has almost 80 marks, his highest since he entered the list. It should be noted, however, 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'." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| News about POP 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 findings on people's expectation of CE's Policy Address on October 13, 2008, Monday, between 1pm and 2pm. Then on October 14, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, POP will release the popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system will be released. POP will also follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly, via our "World Public Opinion Platform" accessible through our POP Site and the "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform" at http://www.hkpop.hk. 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About HKUPOP 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, September 27, 2007 and April 1, 2008. Today, we post it again so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
