Generational Discrepancies in Public Attitude on Taiwan`s Unification Issue

Abstract

In Taiwan, the public’s attitude on the unification/independence issue is very diversified, ranging between supporting immediate unification and supporting immediate independence. The majority of the Taiwan public stands between these two extremes. On an aggregate level, the distribution of these positions has been quite stable in the past three years. However, there have been variations on the individual level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the individual differences among the Taiwan public regarding this issue. The concept of “political generation” will be applied to distinguish attitudinal discrepancies among different groups. Survey data will be used to analyze the different distributions of unification/independence attitudes among various generations of the three major ethnic groups in Taiwan: the Fulao, Hakka, and mainlanders. Discrepancies have been found among these generation groups; especially noticeable is the fact that the youngest generations of Fulao and Hakka tend to be more supportive of a unified Taiwan and China than their elders. This could be a life-cycle phenomenon and subject to change in the future. These discrepancies also have been found to have an impact on presidential preferences.