HKU POP SITE releases the latest findings of people's opinions towards Taiwan and Tibet issuesBack
| Press Release on March 23, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract
The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,004 Hong Kong people between March 9 and 15 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to three months ago, Hong Kong people's opinion towards the independence of Tibet, Taiwan rejoining the United Nations and the applicability of "one country, two systems" to Taiwan has not changed much, but their confidence in reunification across the strait has plummeted by 13 percentage points, to reach a record low since December 2004. Net confidence rate now stands at positive 9 percentage points. Despite a significant drop of 4 percentage points in people's opposition to the independence of Taiwan, similar to that of Tibet, it has remained high at over 70%. The applicability of "one country, two systems" to Taiwan and people's support to Taiwan rejoining the United Nations remain positive, at 53% and 42% respectively, but the net support rate of the latter now drops to just positive 1 percentage point. Director of POP Robert Chung observed, readers are free to form their own judgment on the reasons affecting the ups and downs of different figures using detailed records displayed in the "Opinion Daily". However, because these cross-strait questions touch upon the development of both Mainland and Taiwan societies, when readers make their inferences, they should also consider local media's reports of the two societies, especially the defeat of Kuomintang in recent elections. The maximum sampling error of all percentages released today is between +/-2 and +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the survey is 66%.
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 this survey is 1,004 successful interviews, not 1,004 x 66.4% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and +/-3 percentage points 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level". [4] When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places in order to match the precision level of the figures. [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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Latest Figures
POP today releases via the POP Site the latest figures of Hong Kong people's opinion towards Taiwan and Tibet issues. 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 2009 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the survey:
Recent figures of people's opinions towards Taiwan and Tibet issues are summarized as follows:
[8] 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. Results obtained in the first half of March revealed that 71% of Hong Kong people interviewed opposed the independence of Taiwan whereas only 14% showed support. Meanwhile, 72% objected Tibet becoming independent whilst only 11% held a positive view. Besides, 49% were confident in the ultimate reunification across the strait whilst 40% expressed no confidence. Moreover, 42% supported Taiwan rejoining the United Nations, 41% opposed it. As for the applicability of "one country, two systems" to Taiwan, 53% gave a positive view while 35% gave a negative answer. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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, 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 was conducted from December 8 to 11, 2009 while this survey was conducted from March 9 to 15, 2010. 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.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, 「Compared to three months ago, Hong Kong people's opinion towards the independence of Tibet, Taiwan rejoining the United Nations and the applicability of 'one country, two systems' to Taiwan has not changed much, but their confidence in reunification across the strait has plummeted by 13 percentage points, to reach a record low since December 2004. Net confidence rate now stands at positive 9 percentage points. Despite a significant drop of 4 percentage points in people's opposition to the independence of Taiwan, similar to that of Tibet, it has remained high at over 70%. The applicability of 'one country, two systems' to Taiwan and people's support to Taiwan rejoining the United Nations remain positive, at 53% and 42% respectively, but the net support rate of the latter now drops to just positive 1 percentage point. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of different figures, readers are free to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'. However, because our cross-strait questions touch upon the development of both Mainland and Taiwan societies, when readers make their inferences, they should also consider local media's reports of the two societies, especially the defeat of Kuomintang in recent elections."
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Future Release (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | |
