TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The world likes Taiwan, according to Pew Research Center findings published on Saturday (Aug. 12).
Generally, people in most nations surveyed by the U.S.-based think tank, had a positive view of Taiwan. Japanese at 82% saw Taiwan most favorably, followed by South Koreans at 77%.
Americans and Canadians, 65% and 57% respectively, also looked on Taiwan favorably. The countries that had a mostly negative view were India at 43% and South Africa at 40%.
Pew wrote that Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) would stop over in the U.S. en route to its ally Paraguay this week and the visit had sparked a “backlash from neighboring China.”
It also looked at Taiwan’s popularity vis-a-vis China, pointing out that in “nine of the high- and middle-income countries surveyed, people with favorable views of Taiwan are more likely to say China interfered at least a fair amount in the affairs of other countries.”
It continued that Taiwan is “generally seen favorably in 24 high- and middle-income countries. A median of 48% of people across the 24 countries have a favorable view of Taiwan, compared with a median of 28% who have an unfavorable view.”
Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Hungary, and Spain, were all noted as “likely to have a favorable view of Taiwan as they are to have an unfavorable view.” In 15 of the 24 nations surveyed, about 25% of those asked did not have an opinion on Taiwan.
Meanwhile, “Views of Taiwan and China are also zero-sum in nine high-income countries. In these places, pluralities of adults hold favorable views of Taiwan and unfavorable views of China.”
