TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – If China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, it would win the war, according to 51.2% of Taiwanese respondents to an opinion poll published Tuesday (Sept. 20).

In the survey, the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (TPOF) found that 29.6% of respondents see Taiwan emerge as victorious, while 10.7% said it was difficult to tell, and 8.5% said they did not know.

According to TPOF, this shows that a higher-than-expected number of Taiwanese are confident that the country’s military could hold out and defeat the second most powerful military in the world.

The survey found diverging replies to a question about the response of Taiwan’s military to the Chinese threat. While 50.3% of men said the reaction was too weak, only 37.3% of women agreed with the statement.

The age groups between 25 and 44, and 55 and 64, agreed in majority that Taiwan’s military reacted too carefully, while the age group 45 to 54 was evenly divided, and the youngest and oldest groups, 20 to 24 and older than 65, mostly agreed with the military’s response.

Opinions among the supporters of political parties were roughly evenly divided, though Kuomintang voters agreed with the statement that the military responded too weakly by 54% to 34%.

The poll, conducted Sept. 12-13, resulted in 1,005 valid responses, with a margin of error of 3.09%, TPOF claimed.