Research Questions

Research question one (RQ1): How are attitudes towards threat perception impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis one (H1): Threat perception is significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese perceiving a greater threat from China than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question two (RQ2): How are attitudes towards main mission definition impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis two (H2): Attitudes towards main mission definition are significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese perceiving a greater need to defend against attack from China than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question three (RQ3): How is faith in the military’s ability to defend Taiwan impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis three (H3): Faith in the military’s ability to defend Taiwan is significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese having greater faith in the military’s ability to defend Taiwan than individuals identifying as Chinese.

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Research question four (RQ4): How is perception of the media’s coverage of the military impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis four (H4): Perception of the media’s coverage of the military is significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese perceiving that the media’s harshness in it coverage of the military is warranted, to a greater degree than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question five (RQ5): How is perception of women in uniform impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis five (H5): Perception of women in uniform is significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese having a greater support for all military occupations being open to women than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question six (RQ6): How is perception of homosexuals serving in the military impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis six (H6): Perception of homosexuals serving in the military is significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese being more amenable to allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question seven (RQ7): How are attitudes toward military conscription impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis seven (H7): Attitudes toward military conscription are significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese being less supportive of conscription than individuals identifying as Chinese.

Research question eight (RQ8): How are attitudes toward conscientious objection impacted by self-identification?

Hypothesis eight (H8): Attitudes toward conscientious objection are significantly related to self-identification, with individuals identifying as Taiwanese being more supportive of conscription than individuals identifying as Chinese.

It is anticipated that the survey will reveal that individuals identifying as Taiwanese perceive a greater threat from China than individuals identifying as Chinese (H1). Much of this has to do with the gap between the Taiwanese identity being specific to the inhabitants of the island versus the Chinese identity perceiving themselves as part of a greater China. The latter group may not see future unification with China as a threat to their identity (indeed, if accomplished peacefully, such an outcome would bolster said identity). Moreover, political (as opposed to military) efforts toward a rapprochement with Beijing have opened the possibility of a route to unification without a shot being fired, which should translate into a reduced sense of perceived threat coming from China. Conversely, individuals with a Taiwanese identity risk losing this identity through unification, and therefore would be less likely to be amenable to a willing unification, therefore perceiving a greater threat of force.

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Postmodern militaries shift from a main mission definition of defense against attack to a focus on sub-national threats and MOOTW. Concomitant with the aforementioned higher expected perception of a China threat will be a greater perceived need to defend against that threat, among persons identifying as Taiwanese (H2).

It seems likely individuals identifying as Taiwanese—having a higher perception of the China threat as well as perceiving a greater need to defend against attack—would therefore having greater faith in the military’s ability to defend Taiwan (H3). The military is the last line of defense, once diplomacy and business efforts have failed to derail Chinese ambitions of annexing Taiwan. In such a case, it is reasonable to expect that this urgency would translate into a greater faith in the military’s defensive role. In contrast, individuals identifying as Chinese would seem less likely to conceive of a unification by force, and would be more likely to have faith in a political or negotiated solution to the cross-strait conflict.

Given that the ROC military has a history of controlling the island’s media, and that is has long been an institution wherein Taiwanese officers have traditionally been passed up for promotion in favor of their Mainlander compatriots, it seems very likely that individuals identifying as Taiwanese will be more likely to see the media’s current trend of reporting harshly on the military as being acceptable (H4). Moreover, a more conservative pro-military outlook, and a perception that the media is too hard in its coverage of the military, would seem to be likely among persons who identify as Chinese rather than Taiwanese. Indeed, in the researcher’s experience, this is anecdotally the case.

On the issue of women in uniform, self-identification would seem to have an impact on opinions, insofar as the notion of female soldiers (H5), as well as homosexuals serving openly (H6), is a non-traditional one, and one that marks Taiwan as moving into a postmodern society. As persons who identify as Taiwanese are more concerned with building a society on the island—as opposed to being a smaller part of a larger Chinese sphere—it seems likely that they would be more amenable to being supportive of such postmodern trends. Meanwhile, the Chinese identity would likely be more traditional, viewing such moves as being impositions of Western norms, and therefore not consistent with traditional Chinese culture—though in practice they may accept such moves toward gender and sexual equality, perhaps in the form of tokenism, for the positive image they convey in the international press.

Simple demographics would seem to support the hypothesis that individuals identifying as Taiwanese would be less supportive of conscription (H7) than individuals identifying as Chinese, as increasingly the former far outnumber the latter and would make up the bulk of such a conscription force. Moreover, conscription as a means of staffing a mass army remains within the realm of the traditional, whereas the shift to recruitment is more in line with the aforementioned Western norms and a trend toward a postmodern society. This same dynamic is in play concerning attitudes toward conscientious objection (H8). In building a localized society, persons identifying as Taiwanese would seem to be more likely to be more amenable to CO as a means of creating a postmodern society, in that persons with a valid reason for conscientiously objecting should not be forced to serve, or punished if they refuse to.

In addition to the research questions listed above, a number of non-dimension-specific items have been included in the survey instrument designed to measure more broadly citizen attitudes about the ROC military. These include questions measuring worry about the military imbalance in the Taiwan Strait (Q11), attitudes towards the main problem facing the military (Q12), attitudes towards military/society relations (Q14), personal willingness to fight (Q15),

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attitudes toward one’s own children serving in the military (Q23), and faith in the military’s ability to investigate itself in cases of fatal training accidents (Q17).

Some of these, such as the questions about the main problem facing the military and attitudes towards military/society relations, can provide a more nuanced understanding of citizen perceptions of PMMM dimensions like attitudes toward the military. Others, such as personal willingness to fight and attitudes toward one’s own children serving in the military, are not related to the PMMM dimensions but help provide a context for the findings, as well as serving as excellent exploratory items to better discern trends and perhaps discover unexpected relationships.