HKU POP releases the latest trust and confidence indicatorsBack

Press Release on March 27, 2012

Special Announcement

The "CE Election Guessing Game" hosted by the "PopCon" e-platform (http://popcon.hk) of the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong was closed at zero hour on March 25 the election day. Final guesses, which are not too different from the actual election result, stand at Leung Chun-ying 596 votes, Henry Tang 352 votes and Albert Ho 142 votes. Winners of the game will be announced soon.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,022 Hong Kong people between 9 and 11 March 2012 before the CE election by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that people's trust in the HKSAR Government has not changed much compared to three months ago, but distrust continues to rise, giving a net trust value of zero. On the other hand, people's trust in the Central Government and Taiwan Government have increased significantly, giving net trust values of positive 5 and positive 3 percentage points respectively. People's trust in Taiwan Government reaches record high since 1996, probably because of Ma Ying-jeou's re-election as the President of Taiwan. As for the confidence indicators, compared to three months ago, people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong has not changed much, but that of China's future has increased significantly, giving net confidence values of positive 23 and positive 64 percentage points respectively. People's confidence in 'one country, two systems' has remained stable, with a net confidence of positive 16 percentage points. Further analysis shows that those of age 18-29 distrust the Central Government much more than the older respondents. The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-3 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the response rates of the surveys are 64%.

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 survey is 1,022 successful interviews, not 1,022 x 63.6% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-3 and +/-4 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 +/-4% 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 on schedule via the POP Site the latest findings on people's trust in the HKSAR, Beijing Central and Taiwan governments, and their confidence in Hong Kong's future, China's future and "one country, two systems". As a general practice, all 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 2011 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest surveys:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages^[6]
9-11/3/2012	1,022	63.6%	+/-3%

[6] Errors are 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.

Recent popularity figures of SAR, Beijing Central and Taiwan governments and people's confidence in the future as well as" one country, two systems" are summarized below:

Date of survey	3/2011	6/2011	9/2011	12/2011	3/2012	Latest Change
Total sample size^[7]	1,003/1,000	1,034	1,038	1,005	1,022	--
Overall response rate	65.4%/64.2%	66.5%	66.2%	67.4%	63.6%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding & error ^[8]	--
Trust in HKSAR Government^[9]	42%	34%	44%^[10]	35%^[10]	36+/-4%	+1%
Distrust in HKSAR Government^[9]	28%^[10]	28%	28%	32%	36+/-4%	+4%
Mean value^[9]	3.1+/-0.1 (Base=553)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =503)	3.2+/-0.1^[10] (Base =487)	3.0+/-0.1^[10] (Base =529)	2.9+/-0.1 (Base =580)	-0.1
Trust in Beijing Government^[9]	44%^[10]	31%	35%	33%	39+/-4%	+6%^[10]
Distrust in Beijing Government^[9]	24%^[10]	31%	33%	32%	34+/-4%	+2%
Mean value^[9]	3.2+/-0.1^[10] (Base =515)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =488)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =552)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =527)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =529)	--
Trust in Taiwan Government^[9]	19%^[10]	16%	16%	18%	31+/-4%	+13%^[10]
Distrust in Taiwan Government^[9]	43%	32%	34%	30%	28+/-4%	-2%
Mean value^[9]	2.6+/-0.1 (Base =434)	2.7+/-0.1 (Base =419)	2.6+/-0.1 (Base =364)	2.8+/-0.1^[10] (Base =378)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base =410)	+0.2^[10]
Confidence in HK's future	63%	59%	59%	55%	58+/-4%	+3%
No-confidence in HK's future	32%	31%	34%	37%	35+/-4%	-2%
Confidence in China's future	83%^[10]	75%	73%	73%	79+/-4%	+6%^[10]
No-confidence in China's future	10%^[10]	15%	20%^[10]	19%	15+/-3%	-4%^[10]
Confidence in"one country, two systems"	62%	59%	58%	52%^[10]	55+/-4%	+3%
No-confidence in "one country, two systems"	32%	34%	33%	40%^[10]	39+/-4%	-1%

[7] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals. Starting from March 2011, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of the surveys range from 514 to 598, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.
[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 percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level"when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[9] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean.
[10] 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.

Latest survey revealed that 36% of the respondents trusted the HKSAR Government, 39% trusted the Beijing Central Government, and 31% trusted the Taiwan Government. The mean scores of these trust indicators are 2.9, 3.0 and 3.0 respectively, meaning close to"half-half"in general. On the other hand, 58% of the respondents had confidence in Hong Kong's future and 79% had confidence in China's future, while 55% of the respondents were confident in"one country, two systems".

Indepth Analysis

In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. According to their answers, we grouped them into 18-29, 30-49, and 50 years or older. Herewith further analysis of respondents' trust in Beijing Central Government by age:

Date of survey: 9-11/3/12		18-29	30-49	50 or above	Overall Sample
Percentage of trust/ distrust in Beijing Government^[11]	Trust	23+/-8% (24)	37+/-7% (82)	48+/-7% (108)	39+/-4% (213)
	Half-half	24+/-8% (25)	25+/-6% (55)	20+/-5% (45)	23+/-4% (125)
	Distrust	52+/-10% (55)	33+/-6% (74)	26+/-6% (58)	34+/-4% (187)
	Don't know/ hard to say	1+/-1% (1)	4+/-3% (10)	6+/-3% (13)	4+/-2% (24)
	Total	100% (106)	100% (220)	100% (223)	100% (549)
	Mean value^[12]	2.5+/-0.2 (Base=104)	3.0+/-0.2 (Base=210)	3.3+/-0.2 (Base=210)	3.0+/-0.1 (Base=525)

[11] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

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, some items within the previous survey were conducted from December 6 to 13, 2011 while this survey was conducted from March 9 to 11, 2012. 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.

5/3/12	China lowered its economic growth target this year to below the symbolic 8 percent level.
1/3/12	CE Donald Tsang apologises for incidents of conflict of interest.
23/2/12	Media continues to report multiple incidents of conflict of interest related to CE Donald Tsang.
1/2/12	Financial Secretary John Tsang announces the 2012-13 Budget.
21/1/12	Beijing University professor Kong Qingdong comments many Hong Kong people are dogs.
14/1/12	Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou, was elected to a second term.
9/1/12	Hong Kong and Guangdong today approved the 2012 Work Plan of the Framework Agreement on Hong Kong-Guangdong Co-operation.
27/12/11	Three Hong Kong residents were crushed to death by a coach near the Luohu Commercial City shopping mall in Shenzhen.
14/12/11	The annual three day Central Economic Work Conference laid out an economic blueprint for 2012.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed,"Our latest survey conducted in early March before the CE election shows that people's trust in the HKSAR Government has not changed much compared to three months ago, but distrust continues to rise, giving a net trust value of zero. On the other hand, people's trust in the Central Government and Taiwan Government have increased significantly, giving net trust values of positive 5 and positive 3 percentage points respectively. People's trust in Taiwan Government reaches record high since 1996, probably because of Ma Ying-jeou's re-election as the President of Taiwan. As for the confidence indicators, compared to three months ago, people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong has not changed much, but that of China's future has increased significantly, giving net confidence values of positive 23 and positive 64 percentage points respectively. People's confidence in 'one country, two systems' has remained stable, with a net confidence of positive 16 percentage points. Further analysis shows that those of age 18-29 distrust the Central Government much more than the older respondents. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of various figures, readers are welcome to make their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

Future Releases (Tentative)

March 29, 2012 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and SAR Government
April 3, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Taiwan issues