Polls show Xi-Ma meeting wins strong applause in Taiwan

TAIPEI - Several opinion polls in Taiwan have showed supporters outnumbered critics for the first meeting between cross-Strait leaders in 66 years.

The latest poll made by TVBS, a Taiwan-based news channel, showed 55 percent of the 1,026 respondents in the survey considered the meeting between Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore "conducive to cross-Strait peace and development," eight percentage points higher than before the meeting.

Meanwhile, 47 percent of those surveyed supported Ma's meeting with Xi, 20 percentage points higher than those against it.

Another poll conducted by the Taiwan Competitive Forum, a local think tank, showed that 42.6 percent of the 1,069 surveyed residents supported Ma meeting Xi, while 37.5 percent were against it. The rest remained neutral.

The think tank's poll showed 63.6 percent of respondents supported a regular meeting between leaders across the Taiwan Strait.

In an earlier poll conducted Saturday by the Kuomintang (KMT), the island's ruling party, 46.1 percent of the 736 respondents supported the Xi-Ma meeting, 25 percentage points higher than those against it.

An online survey by tw.yahoo.com, a popular gateway, showed one of the highest support rates at 68 percent.

Chiu Yi, a board member of Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said that opinion polls done by various agencies have produced similar results.

"Supporters of the cross-Strait leaders' meeting far outnumbered the opponents," he said. "A majority of Taiwan residents have acknowledged the significance of the Xi-Ma meeting, the significance of peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, and the significance of the 1992 consensus for stabilizing and developing cross-Strait relations."

"That's the mainstream public opinion in Taiwan," Chiu said.