Public Opinion on Cross-Strait Issues

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public opinion (Hardin 1995; Funk, C. L. (2000); Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009; Keng, Chen, Huang 2006).

In this study we can find both of these major factors as important concepts. The increase of Mainland Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan allows us to study the effect of this development and the importance of both factors on this issue. The purpose of this study is to measure the influence of Chinese tourists on the attitudes of vendors and get a better

understanding of their thinking and the change of their opinions. Therefore, I will first

introduce and set up a framework for the study of tourists influence on vendor’s attitudes and develop a working definition for the dependent variables: attitudes on cross-Strait attitudes.

Then I will turn to the independent variables (identity and business with tourists), before concluding this chapter and introducing the research framework.

2.1 Public Opinion on Cross-Strait Issues

Although much literature exists on the unification/ independence issue and it is one of the core questions in Taiwanese politics today, for this study the primary focus will not be on this topic. This issue has been present for many years and is highly politicized. Scholars like Sheng showed that a close relation between the respondent’s identity and their views on this issue exist (Sheng 2002). The present study has a different approach and wants to specifically analyze the attitudes of night market vendors and the changes in these opinions. Thus, it focuses on attitudes, which are influenced by short-term impact. Those longer lasting policy issues like unification/ independence might not be influenced directly by the tourists and, therefore, their influence might not be visible here. Studies find significant influence of short-term variables like rational incentives on the image level, but most of them fail to recognize significant changes on the level of (political) identity (Keng, Tseng 2010). In the context of the present study, I will, thus, focus on other areas of attitudes. The main emphasis is put on questions regarding other contentious issues with a more immediate and short-term oriented background, which can be seen as belonging to the image level instead of the

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identity level. For this purpose, the study concentrates on three issues: Attitudes toward Chinese tourists, economic interactions with China and political opinions on China.

Attitudes Toward Chinese Tourists

While there is substantial literature on Taiwanese politics and cross-Strait related issues, the views of the Taiwanese public on China and the Chinese people has not been studied as thoroughly. This is astonishing because this aspect of public opinion could also give interesting insights into other areas of research on this topic. Among the few recent accounts of public opinion of Taiwanese people toward other countries is the work of Gries and Su (2013). In their paper, they show that Taiwanese people tend to have negative feelings toward China, which ranks second last only before North Korea in a ranking of attitudes comparing 19 countries conducted in 2011. While, not surprising, Taiwanese people on average felt the warmest toward their own country, China ranks low in absolute and relative terms.

For the present study, the attitudes about the Chinese tourists will be among the most important measures of attitudes. Although no substantial body of research exists to compare results with other studies, the everyday presence of the mainlander tourists on the night market should invoke strong attitudes among most vendors. While some vendors might have no interest in economic or political affairs, this issue directly affects their working situation on the night market and, therefore, strong reactions are expected among the vendors. The results of Gries and Su’s study also suggest that the attitudes on Chinese people should tend to a more negative view.

Cross-Strait Economic Integration

The pace of trade liberalization with mainland China has been a contested issue in the Taiwanese public. Since president Lee Teng-hui announced the “no haste, be patient” policy

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in 1996, there has been discontent among many of the Taiwanese businessmen and

repeatedly demands for trade liberalization have been issued (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010).

But polls show that protectionist views have been dominant all throughout the 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Only then leading up to the year 2007, the support declined to 44% and the percentage supporters of cross-Strait economic integration increased from 18% in 2003 to 42% in 2008 (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010). Since then, the majority of Taiwanese people prefer a modest trade liberalization of cross-Strait economic integration. According to statistics of the Mainland Affairs Council, we can see that the pace of cross-Strait economic integration seems to be just about right for about 45% of the people (Mainland Affairs Council 2012) and has a rising tendency since the ECFA has been signed in 2010.

To explore the attitudes of night market vendors on this issue will hopefully give some more insights into the influence of their economic incentives. The specific focus on the economic side might be also favorable for this study, because it addresses rather the short-term benefits of the people. The nature of this issue as an economic one also leads us to expect rational incentives as being especially important for this question.

Alienation of Taiwanese People From China

Another set of attitudes, I want to address, is the alienation of Taiwanese people from China. This question is also related to the complex area of cross-Strait relations and, just like for the issues of attitudes toward tourists and cross-Strait economic integration, should highlight the short-term prospects rather than the long term expectations. While attitudes toward tourists touches primarily upon the personal feelings of the vendors and the issue of cross-Strait economic integration is primarily an economic issue, the alienation from China can be seen as a first and foremost political topic.

Just like the questions on cross-Strait economic integration, this issue has been studied intensively by several institutions and, again, we can use the data of the Mainland Affairs Council to observe the development over the last couple of years. Sobel, Haynes and Zheng observe “significant movements in the percentage of the Taiwanese public” (Sobel,

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Haynes & Zheng 2010: 14) on this topic during the years from 1998 to 2004. At the end of this period, we find that 62% of people saw the relations between China and Taiwan as hostile during spring 2004 (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010: 14). Looking at current data, we find that the percentage has dropped since then and currently resides at 43.9% (Mainland Affairs Council 2013B).