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TAIPEI, TAIWAN - A RECORD number of Taiwanese considered cross-strait relations friendly after vice president-elect Vincent Siew's recent landmark meeting with China President Hu Jintao, a survey showed on Monday.
Mr Siew, from the Kuomintang (KMT) party, joined the Boao Forum, held in the southern Chinese island of Hainan over the weekend, in his capacity as chairman of the private Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation.
The survey, conducted among 931 residents on Sunday by Taipei-based China Times, said 39.4 per cent considered cross-strait relations as friendly. That number was higher than the previous record of 32.2 per cent posted in 1993 after the first top-level dialogue between the two rivals.
Some 22.4 per cent of the respondents said ties between the two sides remained hostile, down from a record 43.5 per cent in 1995 after China conducted a military drill aimed at Taiwan.
In the 1995 poll, only 13.2 per cent considered relations friendly.
Some 57.4 per cent of those polled Sunday were satisfied with Mr Siew's performance in the Boao Forum regional gathering, while 10.6 per cent were unhappy with it, the survey added.
Meanwhile, 64.2 per cent believed Mr Siew's meeting with Mr Hu would help turn around Taiwan's slowing economy, while 14.5 per cent said the meeting would not help.
Talks across the Taiwan Strait have been suspended since Taiwan's leaders refuse Beijing's demand to embrace the one China principle as a precondition for discussions. Beijing defines the principle to mean that Taiwan and the mainland belong to one China.
The two sides split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
Cross-strait ties worsened after Taiwan's independence-leaning Chen Shui Bian of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party became president in 2000.
Mr Chen was re-elected in 2004.
The KMT's Ma Ying Jeou, who has vowed to improve ties with China and expand bilateral economic exchanges, won a landslide victory in the March presidential election. He takes office in May. -- AFP
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