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Most Taiwanese do not view US as ‘trustworthy’ but majority believe in its security commitment: survey
- Washington’s response to Ukraine war cited as reason for mixed views, as island residents ponder what would happen if Beijing engaged them militarily
- Independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate leads polls, and ‘conflict with China has reached a new dimension’
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A majority of Taiwanese do not view the US as a “trustworthy” country, a recent survey has found, despite most respondents saying they believe in Washington’s security commitment to the island.
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The annual survey by the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taipei found that only 34 per cent of those polled agreed that the US is trustworthy, holding steady from last year when the figure fell to 34 per cent from 43.4 per cent in 2021.
Yet as American credibility remained stable, more than 50 per cent did not deem the US “trustworthy” in the survey of 1,211 Taiwanese adults conducted in September, although China fared significantly worse.
“We suspect that the drop may have come from the occurrence of the Ukraine war and how the United States government responded,” said Hsin-Hsin Pan, a member of the survey team at Taipei’s Soochow University, at an event on Monday hosted by the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank.
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Washington’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine indicates to many Taiwanese how the US might respond if Beijing were to engage in armed conflict with the island, Pan added.
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