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 in September, 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 not changed much. On the awareness level, James Soong has replaced Li Peng in the list to rank 8th. This makes our top 10 list a 50:50 split again across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, the popularity ratings of all the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list have dropped. With the exception of Chen Shui-bian at the bottom of the list, the ratings of all figures have dropped beyond sampling errors. Such drops are probably due to the way the two governments handled the Diaoyu Islands Incident. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao continue to rank 1st and 2nd. Ma Ying-jeou and Hu Jintao swap positions to rank 3rd and 4th. Xi Jinping, Jiang Zemin and Lien Chan continue to rank 5th, 6th and 7th. James Soong re-enters the list to occupy the 8th place. Lee Teng-hui goes down one position to rank 9th, 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 maximum sampling error of all rating figures is +/-2.3 marks at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the rating survey is 68%.

[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 first stage naming survey is 1,036 successful interviews, not 1,036 x 63.1% response rate. The sample size of the second stage rating survey is 1,001 successful interviews, not 1,001 x 67.6% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] “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 various ratings not more than +/-2.3 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, one decimal place can be used when quoting these rating 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.

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 2012 mid-year. 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 first half of September. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Ma Ying-jeou, Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping and Chen Shui-bian 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 mid 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:

[7] 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 various ratings not more than +/-2.3 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site. {} Number in square brackets indicates rankings.
[8] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not listed.
[9] 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 mid September 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 70.3 and 68.0 marks respectively. The 3rd and 4th ranks went to Ma Ying-jeou and Hu Jintao with respective scores of 62.2 and 61.6 marks. Xi Jinping, Jiang Zemin, Lien Chan and James Soong occupied the 5th to 8th ranks with 59.4, 52.1, 48.7 and 45.7 marks correspondingly. The 9th and 10th ranks fell to Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 32.8 and 18.2 marks. For this latest survey, Li Keqiang and Tsai Ing-wen obtained support ratings of 50.1 and 47.2 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 64.3 marks, while that for the top 10 was 51.9 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 Zhu Rongji in the top rank, achieving an average rating of 72.0 marks, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao ranked 2nd and 3rd, attaining 71.5 and 67.2 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 62.6, 55.5, 51.8, 37.6 and 18.4 marks. Xi Jinping and Li Peng have been on the list for three times and twice with 60.9 and 38.6 marks, ranked the 9th and 10th respectively. Li Keqiang, James Soong and Lu Hsiu-lien have been on the list once with respective scores of 54.3, 45.7 and 35.9 marks and occupied the 11th to 13th places 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 March 28 to April 2, 2012 while the latest survey was conducted from September 17 to 20, 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 not changed much. On the awareness level, James Soong has replaced Li Peng in the list to rank 8th. This makes our top 10 list a 50:50 split again across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, the popularity ratings of all the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list have dropped. With the exception of Chen Shui-bian at the bottom of the list, the ratings of all figures have dropped beyond sampling errors. Such drops are probably due to the way the two governments handled the Diaoyu Islands Incident. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao continue to rank 1st and 2nd. Ma Ying-jeou and Hu Jintao swap positions to rank 3rd and 4th. Xi Jinping, Jiang Zemin and Lien Chan continue to rank 5th, 6th and 7th. James Soong re-enters the list to occupy the 8th place. Lee Teng-hui goes down one position to rank 9th, 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'."

• October 3, 2012 (Wednesday) 1pm to 2 pm: Popularity of CE and SAR Government