A new survey showing that more than four million Taiwanese say they could accept "peaceful unification" with China has drawn sharp pushback from a leading political scientist, who argues the result reflects how little most respondents understand about what life in Hong Kong has actually become.
The poll, commissioned by Formosa Magazine and conducted from April 22 to 24, 2026, asked respondents whether they would accept unification if Taiwan were incorporated into the People's Republic of China as a province or special administrative region — similar to Hong Kong or Macau — with a guarantee that no war would break out across the Taiwan Strait. Some 22.4% said they could accept such an arrangement, equivalent to more than four million people. Of those, 5.2% said they were fully open to the idea, while 17.2% said they could more or less accept it.
Ming Chu-cheng (明居正), professor emeritus of political science at National Taiwan University and one of Taiwan's most prominent voices on cross-strait affairs, appeared on the Storm MediaYT talk show to challenge what those numbers actually reveal.
Why the Numbers May Not Mean What They Seem
Ming, drawing on decades of experience in survey research, cautioned against taking the result at face value. He identified two structural problems with how general audiences respond to polls on complex political questions.
First, most respondents have limited familiarity with the specifics of cross-strait policy, making them susceptible to the framing of the question itself. Second, people tend to anchor their answers to events from the previous two weeks. "Whatever happened in the last two weeks is still fresh in memory, and that's what people draw on when they answer," Ming said. When survey language pairs the words "peace" and "no war" together, he added, the instinctive reaction is to view the scenario positively — regardless of what it actually entails.
A Downward Trend: Support Has Fallen Steadily Since 2022
Ming placed the 22.4% figure in longer context, noting it is part of a multi-year decline rather than a stable or rising sentiment. Support for peaceful unification stood at 28.4% in 2022, dropped to 24.8% in 2024, and has now slipped further. At the same time, Ming noted, opposition to unification remains more than three times higher than support — a ratio that rarely appears in headlines but significantly shapes the overall picture.
He also recalled the political impact of Hong Kong's 2019 anti-extradition protests on Taiwan's domestic politics. Former President Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) approval rating had fallen as low as 18% before the protests began. After she publicly supported the Hong Kong demonstrators, her numbers surged to 39%, and she went on to win re-election in 2020 with 57% of the vote. Ming said he confirmed this connection directly with party insiders. "If you had asked people at that moment whether they wanted to become like Hong Kong, I believe the response would have been very different from what we see today," he said.
What Hong Kong Looks Like Now: Capital Flight, Elite Exodus, Vanishing Freedoms
The core of Ming's argument is that the survey question presents a version of Hong Kong that no longer exists — and that informed respondents would answer differently.
Since 2019, he said, an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 people have left Hong Kong, with airport farewell scenes he described as heartbreaking. He compared the exodus to the flight of mainland Chinese refugees in 1949. "These people understand what the Chinese Communist Party is," he said.
Ming distinguished between two groups: those who chose to leave, whom he described as understanding the permanence of their departure, and older residents who stayed because they felt they had little left to lose. "Those who left are mostly the middle and upper-middle class — talented people, around 400,000 to 500,000 of them," he said.
Beyond the human toll, Ming pointed to large-scale capital outflows, the withdrawal of major foreign businesses, and sharp declines in both the Hong Kong stock market and property values, which he said have roughly halved. He acknowledged that some economic indicators have recently recovered — but attributed the rebound to mainland Chinese buyers purchasing property in Hong Kong. "They feel that living in Hong Kong is still somewhat better than living on the mainland," he said.
His conclusion was direct: Hong Kong has lost all of its freedoms, and those who say they support peaceful unification should reckon with that reality before making their choice. "If they truly understood, they might not make that choice," he said.
About the Poll
The survey was commissioned by Formosa Magazine, with questionnaire design and analysis by Tai Li-an (戴立安) and fieldwork conducted by Beacon Market Research. Interviews were carried out from April 22 to 24, 2026, covering all 22 counties and municipalities in Taiwan. Respondents were registered residents aged 20 and above. The survey used a dual-frame sampling method combining landline and mobile telephone interviews, with 1,074 valid interviews completed — 698 by landline and 376 by mobile. The maximum margin of sampling error is ±3.0% at the 95% confidence level. （Related： Exclusive | Nobel Laureate Pissarides: Why a Four-Day Workweek Is Our AI-Driven Future ｜ Latest ）
