Saturday, February 09, 2008

More Blue poll fun

I've often noted over the years how Blue-run polls in Taiwan exist to shape discourse rather than inform it. A good example is the recent poll out at KNN, the Kuomintang News Network, of managers of Taiwan firms. The poll's findings:

The latest survey conducted by the China Credit Information Service Ltd (CCIS) shows that 72% of managers of top 5,000 enterprises are worried about Taiwan's economic development and hope that the government will propose effective policies. With respect to political events such as the plebiscite on joining the UN and rectification of names, nearly 50% of the respondents opined that those political events were not in Taiwan's best interests.
If you note the poll's subjects they are all things that the Blue side obsesses about. Why would anyone bother to ask about such things? Well, the China Credit Information Service, which originated the poll is, according to its history, owned by the China Times, the former Xinhua of the KMT (note how totally unethical it is not to give that information on the origin of the poll). The survey does have its amusing moments:
According to this survey, 49% of the respondents think that their company will continue to make more profits this year. 13% of the respondents worry that company profits will decrease.

When asked about Taiwan's economic prospects for the next two years, 29% of the respondents expressed pessimism. 72% of the respondents worry about the moving abroad of Taiwan enterprises and the economic slowdown in Taiwan.

Sure -- our economy sucks, but even by this obviously biased survey, less than a third of managers are pessimistic. Only 13% see a decrease in profits. Why? Because the economy doesn't suck. Last year growth was over 5.4%, this year we'll still be over 4.5% even with the recession in the US.

The KMT's strategy, as I have noted, is to shut down infrastructure spending, punishing the local areas and holding incomes down, and then claim that the economy is bad and only the KMT can save it. Such blackmail can work only when the public is constantly misinformed by the media. And here is how this misperception of the world is created.

2 comments:

HeiShouDang 黑手黨 said...

You are so right. I was chatting to a friend of mine the other day who went back to the UK about 5 five years ago with his wife and two kids. They are thinking about coming back to Taiwan and he was asking me if he could still make money as everything was so bad in Taiwan.
Of course, I had to tell him that that was all BS and that not much has changed since he left.
Just goes to show the power of the pan-blue tainted international media and how they shape opinion overseas.

Anonymous said...

Hi!

Could you image what might happen in America, if your candidte for president had his daughter the other country's nationality.