HKU POP releases survey on the popularity of cross-strait political figuresBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) 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 between March and April, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to 6 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has only changed slightly. On the awareness level, Li Peng has replaced Li Keqiang in the list to rank 9th, the split across the strait remains at 6:4. In terms of support rating, among the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list, the popularity ratings of 6 have increased while the other 3 have dropped. Ma Ying-jeou and Wen Jiabao register significant increase, while Jiang Zemin and Li Peng register their record lows since the handover. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao continue to rank 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping swap positions to rank 4th and 5th. Jiang Zemin continues to rank 6th. Lien Chan and Lee Teng-hui each goes up one position to rank 7th and 8th. Li Peng re-enters the list to occupy the 9th place, while Chen Shui-bian continues to rank 10th. It should be noted that our list of 'top 10 cross-strait political figures' only includes 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. The sampling errors of rating figures registered fall between +/-1.5 and +/-2.2. The response rate of the rating survey is 63%.

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the latest survey on popularity of cross-strait political figures. 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 2011 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 late March. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Ma Ying-jeou, Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao, Chen Shui-bian and Xi Jinping 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 between late March and early April, 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:

Survey conducted between late March and early April revealed that, among the ten most well-known political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, in terms of popularity rating, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao ranked first and second, attaining 73.8 and 73.4 marks respectively. The 3rd and 4th ranks went to Hu Jintao and Ma Ying-jeou with respective scores of 69.4 and 67.9 marks. Xi Jinping, Jiang Zemin and Lien Chan occupied the 5th to 7th ranks with 61.6, 55.9 and 52.2 marks correspondingly. The 8th to 10th ranks fell to Lee Teng-hui, Li Peng and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 38.0, 37.3 and 19.1 marks. For this latest survey, Li Keqiang and Tsai Ing-wen obtained support ratings of 54.5 and 52.5 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 69.2 marks, while that for the top 10 was 54.9 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 eight political figures have been on the list for four times. They are Wen Jiabao in the top rank, achieving an average rating of 73.7 marks, Zhu Rongji and Hu Jintao ranked 2nd to 3rd and attained 72.3 and 69.5 marks correspondingly, Ma Ying-jeou, Jiang Zemin, Lien Chan, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian who ranked 4th to 8th with respective scores of 61.8, 56.5, 53.2, 38.3 and 18.3 marks. Xi Jinping and Li Peng have been on the list for three times with 61.7 and 40.0 marks, ranked the 9th and 10th respectively. Li Keqiang and Lu Hsiu-lien have been on the list once with respective scores of 54.3 and 35.9 marks and ranked at the 11th and 12th place respectively.

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 of some items was conducted from September 14 to 21, 2011 while the latest survey was conducted from March 28 to April 2, 2012. During this period, 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, "Compared to 6 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has only changed slightly. On the awareness level, Li Peng has replaced Li Keqiang in the list to rank 9th, the split across the strait remains at 6:4. In terms of support rating, among the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list, the popularity ratings of 6 have increased while the other 3 have dropped. Ma Ying-jeou and Wen Jiabao register significant increase, while Jiang Zemin and Li Peng register their record lows since the handover. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao continue to rank 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping swap positions to rank 4th and 5th. Jiang Zemin continues to rank 6th. Lien Chan and Lee Teng-hui each goes up one position to rank 7th and 8th. Li Peng re-enters the list to occupy the 9th place, while Chen Shui-bian continues to rank 10th. It should be noted that our list of 'top 10 cross-strait political figures' only includes 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 different figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

• April 17, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2 pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials