MAJORITY BACK FULL-SCALE WAR TO TAKE TAIWAN
Survey offers insight into public opinion, but only 1 per cent favour the most extreme choice of conflict without trying other options first
Just over half of mainlanders support a full-scale war to take control of Taiwan, according to a new survey that offers a rare insight into public opinion as Beijing takes an increasingly assertive stance towards the island.
The survey of 1,824 people found mixed public attitudes, with 55 per cent in favour of “launching a unification war to take back Taiwan entirely”, with a third opposing it and the remainder saying they were unsure.
The study, by academics Adam Y. Liu, from the National University of Singapore, and Xiaojun Li, from NYU Shanghai, was published in the Journal of Contemporary China on Monday.
Even though authoritarian leaders did not come to power through competitive elections, they still had incentives to ensure their policies aligned with prevailing public opinion to avoid an internal backlash, the authors wrote. “This is particularly true for China, where nationalism serves as a key pillar of regime legitimacy, especially on issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” they added.
However, analysts said the authorities could use “sophisticated means” to shape public opinion, potentially calming more extreme voices.
The nationwide survey was conducted in late 2020 and early 2021, when respondents were asked a series of questions about their attitudes towards Taiwan and their favoured options as things stood.
Apart from the 55 per cent supporting a full-scale war, just 1 per cent favoured the most extreme option of not trying other options first.
Other options designed to coerce Taiwan into agreeing to unification also won majority support. These included “initiating limited military campaigns on the outskirts of Taiwan” (58 per cent), “using economic sanctions” (57 per cent) and “maintaining status quo to increase economic and military power” until unification (55 per cent).
Given the extreme sensitivities around the issue, it was perhaps surprising that some 22 per cent of respondents said they were fine with the two sides keeping separate political systems “with unification not necessarily being the end game”, compared with 71 per cent who said this was unacceptable. The researchers also tried to gauge respondents’ degree of nationalism by asking five questions about their national pride and sense of belonging.
They concluded that a higher degree of nationalism combined with peer pressure created an “amplifying effect” that drove people to support more aggressive options and pressured more moderate voices to conform.
However, they also found that the appeal of the aggressive options was dampened by concerns about the economic, human and reputational costs of a forceful takeover and the likelihood of the United States intervening.
Although earlier studies have concluded that younger mainland Chinese tend to be more nationalistic and hawkish, this poll found that, in fact, older respondents tended to favour more aggressive policy choices such as full-scale war or military coercion. “Perhaps the older Chinese have now become more impatient and are more willing to see the Taiwan issue resolved, presumably during their lifetime, one way or the other, rather than wait indefinitely,” the authors said.
The release of the survey comes at a time when tensions over the Taiwan Strait have increasingly become a key stage for the bitter rivalry between China and the United States.
But recent signs, including a recent speech by the Communist Party’s fourth-ranking official Wang Huning where he emphasised the importance of crossstrait ties, showed that Beijing was “trying to walk back from [its] tough rhetoric”, Liu added.
“[Beijing] shall not feel compelled to take a tougher stance on Taipei as milder policy options are also acceptable in the eyes of the Chinese public,” he said.
The survey could also indicate that armed unification was not Beijing’s only choice, Liu said, so the US “should also not design its China policies as if the reunification clock is really ticking”.
Most Americans, especially Democrats, support the US defending Taiwan, according to a public poll conducted by the Global Taiwan Institute, a Washington-based non-profit.
Beijing has also become concerned as more countries argue the future of Taiwan, a key producer of semiconductors, is a “global” one, despite its insistence the matter is an internal affair.
Amanda Hsiao, a senior China analyst with the International Crisis Group, said there appeared to be “growing pessimism” about the prospects of a peaceful resolution and warned that high levels of nationalism in the mainland could narrow the range of seemingly acceptable options.
Sung Wen-Ti, a political scientist with the Australian National University, said the mainland Chinese public only had limited influence over policymaking – especially with regard to sensitive issues such as Taiwan.