Formosa as a Safe Haven? Taiwan’s Public Opinion on Potential Asylum Mechanisms and Refugees

Abstract

Taiwan—one of the most progressive countries in Asia—has no asylum law. Due to its political status and its complicated relationship with China, serious concerns surround this topic. Compounding this issue is the limited discussion on this topic within Taiwanese society, with many Taiwanese unaware of the absence of an asylum law in Taiwan, as evidenced by the interviews conducted with refugee support organisations. The lack of comprehensive social dialogue and nationally representative surveys further obscures the true stance of the Taiwanese population on the asylum issue. To address this gap, this chapter presents the findings of the first-ever comprehensive, nationally representative survey that explores Taiwanese views on the refugee issue. The survey covers various aspects: the stance on the eventual adoption of an asylum law, its potential form and concerns about it, and attitudes towards different refugee groups. While online forums may be dominated by negative comments about refugees, creating an impression of an anti-refugee attitude, the survey results paint a different picture. The Taiwanese population holds generally positive attitudes towards refugees and tends to agree that Taiwan needs a proper asylum system. However, a considerable portion of respondents remains undecided, underscoring the need for broader societal discussions on the topic.

Introduction

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is considered to be one of the most progressive countries in terms of human rights in Asia, but it has no asylum law. Due to the political status of Taiwan, the challenges it faces in regard to this topic are quite different from other countries. Because the ROC was replaced in the United Nations’ (UN) China seat by the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan has not signed UN treaties on the handling of asylum seekers and refugees. However, not being a member of the UN is not a hindrance per se to the adoption of an asylum law. Taiwan has proven in the past that it can work around the system and adhere to international human rights standards.

Although not able to become party to most human rights treaties, Taiwan has “ratified” five international human rights treaties, among them are the 2009 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. These human rights protection provisions (including the non-refoulement obligations, which under international humanitarian law guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment) now have domestic legal status in Taiwan, and the state is bound to respect civil and political rights (such as the rights to life, and freedom of religion or speech) and to work towards granting people economic, social, and cultural rights (including labour rights, the right to health, education, and an adequate standard of living). Adopting an asylum law in Taiwan should thus be seen as a continuation of a broader push to bring Taiwan’s legal system in line with international human rights law.

It is an important topic because although Taiwanese politicians claim that the regulations currently in place are sufficient, research has shown they are not. There are several groups that would benefit from an asylum law in Taiwan, from Hong Kong protesters facing persecution, through Chinese dissidents or descendants of the ROC army from the Thailand-Myanmar border region, to Turkish people with revoked passports (Kironska, 2022a). Despite the need for an asylum law, in political circles there is no rush for the adoption of such a law as this is a complex issue due to Taiwan's complicated relationship with China.

There are several legitimate and often repeated concerns surrounding this topic. These concerns have much weight. Firstly, most of the refugees seeking asylum in Taiwan are from China, Hong Kong, or Tibet, and technically they are ROC citizens according to the 1946 Constitution, which is still valid in Taiwan. Thus, it is unclear whether they would even qualify as refugees. According to the definition of a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee must have crossed an international border. Secondly, it is unclear whether designating them non-citizens would be seen by China as claiming de jure independence, in which case China could use force against the island. Thirdly, there are national security concerns surrounding the issue of potential Chinese spies being sent to Taiwan (although there are much simpler avenues to enter the country) or the fear of “being flooded” by large numbers of people. However, there are clear reasons why having systems to manage such scenarios is better than not having them having systems to manage such scenarios is better than not having them. For example, an actual asylum law would allow for a proper vetting system with clear review mechanisms. To avoid conflicts with China, a dual system could be introduced. South Korea could serve as an inspiration, as it deals with North Koreans differently (by their Constitution they are considered citizens) than foreigners from other parts of the world (Wolman, 2012). This is, however, beyond the scope of this research, and could be examined in future research.

This chapter aims to shed light on Taiwanese public opinion on the refugee issue—towards refugees and towards a potential asylum law in Taiwan. In general, there is a very limited discussion on these topics within Taiwanese society, with many Taiwanese even being unaware of the absence of an asylum law in Taiwan. To address this gap, this chapter presents the findings of the first-ever comprehensive, nationally representative survey exploring Taiwanese views on the refugee issue. While the chapter employs mixed methods, the survey results add the most value. The survey covers various aspects—from stances on the eventual adoption of an asylum law in Taiwan and its potential form (inclusive or exclusive of Chinese nationals), through the perceived concerns in doing so (including potentially worsened relations with the PRC), to attitudes towards different groups of people facing persecution. While online forums may be dominated by negative comments about refugees, creating an impression that Taiwanese oppose granting asylum to refugees in their country, the research results paint a different picture.

Why is this important? Firstly, because public perception could have real-world implications. Some scholars argue that a strong consensus in public opinion should be enough to ensure a shift in policy (Petry, 1999), while others have pointed out that issue salience is key (Soroka, 2002). So, although the direct causal role of public opinion in shaping decision-making is disputed, it is still important and (in democratic societies) it has become part of the public policy-making process (Rouce, 2004). For political actors, consulting the public and paying attention to its opinions is an important part of democracy (Noelle-Neumann, 1993). In Taiwan, political actors heavily depend on public opinion, especially on sensitive topics that involve Taiwan’s relationship with China, and discussing a potential asylum law in Taiwan inevitably touches on cross-strait relations. However, in the case of asylum in Taiwan, increasing its salience is of great importance, as, until now, there has been a lack of discussion on this issue. Secondly, the topic of asylum has not been very thoroughly explored in the arena of Taiwan studies, although with the new draft of an asylum law submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review in 2023, it is gaining relevance.

The chapter is organised as follows. After the introduction, the methodology is explained. In the next section, the lack of social dialogue on the refugee issue, including the lack of representative surveys on this matter, is described. It is followed by an analysis of the Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey data (2022) on Taiwanese people’s opinion on a potential asylum law and on various groups in need of protection. The last part sums up the findings of this chapter.

Methodology

This research is based on a mixed method, both quantitative data (survey questions) and qualitative data (interviews) have been applied.

For the purpose of providing context on the refugee situation in Taiwan, especially the little social dialogue there has been on the topic, interviews were conducted with organisations that work on the refugee issue in Taiwan, namely Amnesty International Taiwan, Refugee Network Taiwan, and one other organisation that is directly involved in helping Hong Kongers in Taiwan, which prefers to stay in anonymity. In each of these organisations one person has been interviewed. Interviewees were selected based on purposive non-probability sampling, on the assumption that they represent interesting cases for the study. The interviews were conducted in the form of open-ended questions, loosely organised, focusing on the participants’ professional opinions and experience with the asylum topic in Taiwan, be it from an advocacy or activist perspective. Two of the interviews were conducted before the survey data collection and one afterwards.

Quantitative data for this research was obtained from the 2022 Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey (Turcsanyi et al., 2022), part of the wider Sinophone Borderlands Surveys (2020–2022), which investigates global views of China through a series of large-scale representative surveys of public opinion in many (selected) parts of the world. The author is one of the conveners of the survey project and herself designed the Taiwan survey questions on the asylum/refugee issue in Taiwan, including several experiments using the split ballot technique. The Indo-Pacific Survey was conducted in 15 countries, with Taiwan as one of the surveyed countries.

The Taiwanese part of the survey data was collected by the survey agency Cint between April and June 2022. The sample is nationally representative in terms of age, gender, and regions, involving 1350 respondents. Participants registered in online panels operated by the agency responded, in Mandarin Chinese, to an online survey. The author is aware that there may be differences as a result of using data collected online rather than if the data had been collected offline (Saloniki et al., 2019). The questionnaire consisted of approximately 60 questions, many of which investigated people’s views on topics other than China, such as asylum, the death penalty, and religion (while the overarching theme was “views on China”). For the purpose of this research, the author has worked with only a part of the Taiwanese dataset: the refugee issue questions (described below). In addition, information on a range of key demographic variables (e.g. age, gender, education, region, and political leaning) has also been collected. Data obtained from the survey was analysed in the open-source statistics software JASP and the results visualised in Infogram, a software which helps with visualising data. The percentage numbers have been rounded in the text and answers have been grouped together (on a 5-point scale, answers 1 and 2 are negative and 4 and 5 are positive; on a 7-point scale, answers 1, 2, and 3 are negative and 5, 6, and 7 are positive) for an easier understanding of the results.

The survey questions related to the topic of asylum in Taiwan included the stance on the eventual adoption of an asylum law in Taiwan, and in what form (including or excluding the Chinese); the perceived drawbacks in doing so (including potentially worsened relations with the PRC); and feelings towards different groups of people that are often on the move due to some form of persecution—Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Syrians, or the Rohingya. Religious and ethnic groups have been grouped in the question on purpose, especially including “highly charged” group names (such as “Muslims”), to see if there would be any strong reactions from the respondents.

Additionally, the data has been analysed by disaggregating it based on demographic characteristics, which will be further reported in the data analysis section whenever correlations with gender, age, education, region, and/or party preference were found.

While the author uses the term “asylum” throughout this chapter, in the survey data used in this chapter the preferred term in English was “refugee” (in Chinese nanmin), such as, for example, “Refugee Law” (in Chinese nanmin fa), on the assumption that the wider public is more familiar with this term.

Lack of Public Dialogue and Opinion Polls on the Refugee Issue in Taiwan

Taiwan today, with its so-called small nation mentality (“Who would want to come to Taiwan?”), is not used to having to accept refugees or even discussing this issue very widely (Yoshin Wang, Refugee Network Taiwan, personal communication, March 2023). Most Taiwanese are not even aware there is no asylum law in Taiwan. It is also not a topic often seen in the media and Taiwanese politicians also refrain from such discussions. Thus, with the relative lack of experience or knowledge of the topic, it is hard to have any meaningful discussion.

According to the interviewees, what first brought awareness about people on the move requiring protection was the European refugee crisis in 2015. There were many articles in the Taiwanese media describing the events in Europe.

While the European crisis seemed a distant reality, the arrival of protesters from Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020 brought the issue somewhat closer. Still, it did not prompt the adoption of an asylum law. Instead, the Hong Kongers first got visa extensions, as the government was undecided as to what to do with them before the presidential elections in January 2020 (Taiwanese NGO activist, NGO in anonymity, personal communication, December 2022). Later, they were encouraged to seek other pathways to receive residency, such as working, investing, or studying in Taiwan (Davidson, 2022). The work of NGOs in helping individuals (legal and financial support, as well as counselling) was invaluable as there were no set rules, and Hong Kongers were handled on a case-by-case basis (Nachman & Hioe, 2019).

The refugee topic resurfaced again with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Taiwan joined the ranks of Ukraine supporters with substantial financial and medical aid, as well as announcements of easier access to visas for Ukrainians (for which only a very limited amount of people were eligible—those who have relatives in Taiwan, whether Taiwanese or foreigners holding a residency certificate) (Kironska, 2022b).

Besides the media covering the refugee topic (mostly on refugee crises abroad), social dialogue on the refugee issue in Taiwan—small in its scale—has been led mostly by NGOs, such as the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Covenants Watch, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, and Amnesty International Taiwan, or by individuals who have hands-on experience with the issue (Chiu, 2022). Such is the case for an Egyptian activist and former political refugee who applied for asylum in South Korea, but then met his future Taiwanese wife, and now lives in Taiwan—he often speaks about his situation at various events (one such event was organised by the author herself in Taipei, “Amnesty Talks: Refugees”, on 20 February 2020). Also, there is a new platform, Refugee 101 Taiwan, which is educating Taiwanese people about refugees, and there are other organisations, such as the Refugee Network Taiwan, which conducts work outside of Taiwan, including providing online teaching of internally displaced Syrians. Such organisations, working inside or outside Taiwan, also have an impact on the domestic Taiwanese audience (Yoshin Wang, Refugee Network Taiwan, personal communication, March 2023). Amnesty International Taiwan is also working on the refugee topic, introducing individual cases and educating their supporters. Perhaps the most visible and vocal on the topic of asylum and refugees is the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, which provides accommodation, medical treatment, and psychological counselling to asylum seekers in Taiwan and is also involved in advocacy work, including drafting an asylum law several times and submitting it to the Legislative Yuan (without it ever being passed).

While there has not been a nationally representative survey on the opinions of the general public, the above-mentioned organisations have encountered some responses from certain segments of the public in their work. According to Zak Huang (Amnesty International Taiwan, personal communication, December 2020), who works as a campaigner at Amnesty International Taiwan, there is a tendency among some people to believe that refugees would have a negative impact on society. Examples of such comments can be found in the comments section under Amnesty International Taiwan’s Facebook posts from summer 2020. Some people shared concerns about security for such a small island (“Taiwan is too small, it would be unable to accept a large number of these refugees, and public security would deteriorate”.), others about social issues (“Refugees can go to whichever country they want just because their children are innocent? Do you realise refugees are illegal and they can easily bring over many social issues?” and “Do not cause any trouble to Taiwan. These refugees won’t be able to adapt to our culture – this is what caused the mess in Europe”.) or financial concerns (“Let me ask you, has your organisation thought of who will pay for taking care of the refugees?”) (Amnesty International Taiwan Facebook, 2020). Many also referred to the European refugee crisis as a comparison (“Stop causing trouble to more countries. Europe’s public security deteriorated. Every country should help itself”. And “Look at Paris in France, how dirty and messy it became due to refugees”.) and suggested refraining from helping refugees (“Everyone has their own destiny, being a busybody means you are taking up other’s karma. Helping others will get you in trouble”.) (Amnesty International Taiwan Facebook, 2020). Also frequently observed on social media platforms are harsh and often racist comments comparing refugees to criminals (“No. Damn! After Europe accepted a crowd of trashy refugees the crime and unemployment rate increased. Don’t Taiwanese know that?”), along with Islamophobic remarks (Amnesty International Taiwan Facebook, 2020). However, it should be noted that the prevalence of negative comments on social media cannot necessarily be seen as representative of society at large, and should be perceived as merely illustrative rather than conclusive. Nevertheless, based on such comments, one might assume that the Taiwanese people are not very receptive to accepting refugees in their country. However, the data presented in the next section contradicts this assumption.

Moving from the general public to Taiwanese elites, the picture remains somewhat similar. In the past, only a handful of Taiwanese politicians, such as Mei You-nu or Freddy Lim, have been vocal about the adoption of an asylum law. Also, after the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, the Taiwan People’s Party spoke out in favour of the adoption of an asylum law in Taiwan, but these are exceptions rather than a systematic approach (Guo, 2022).

Since there is not much discussion on the topic of asylum in Taiwan (neither generated by the grassroots nor by the elites), national sample surveys on people’s attitudes towards refugees and an asylum policy are also lacking. In 2016, the Foreign Relations Association commissioned a poll on National Attitudes towards International and Diplomatic Affairs, which contained questions on people’s attitudes towards refugees. Only 2% of the respondents said they were willing to fully accept refugees, 11% accepted them with conditions, and 40% accepted them with conditions but with less openness. 37% were against accepting refugees (Chen, 2016). With Hong Kongers arriving in Taiwan, there were a few more polls focusing on the issue. In May 2020, the New Power Party (NPP) commissioned a poll about whether people supported amending the “Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong and Macao Affairs” to help the arriving protesters, with over 60% support (Wu, 2020). However, a July 2020 survey conducted by ETtoday News Cloud showed that half of the public was not ready to support a significant relaxation of immigration to Taiwan for people from Hong Kong (Zhang, 2020). According to a 2021 poll, 28% of the people thought Taiwan was doing enough to assist Hong Kongers and 40% believed Taiwan had no obligations in this regard. 36% of Taiwanese people supported Hong Kongers immigrating to Taiwan while only 23% opposed it. The largest group, however, at 42%, was ambivalent (Nachman et al., 2021).

The following section attempts to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive picture of Taiwanese people’s preferences (based on Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey data) when it comes to refugees and a potential asylum law.

Taiwanese People’s Stance on Potential Asylum Mechanisms and Refugees

According to the data regarding potential asylum mechanisms in Taiwan, more respondents agreed than disagreed (see specific numbers below) with having to pass some kind of a refugee act, but most actually did not have an opinion on this (see Fig. 9.1). This lack of stance was evident from the respondents’ choice of the neutral midpoint. Including a midpoint gave respondents the opportunity to express a neutral opinion, especially on obscure topics (Johns, 2005). However, research has shown that respondents do not always interpret and use a midpoint in the way that scale developers intended (Chyung et al., 2017). Labels have been provided for all the anchors on the scale, with the midpoint marked as “neither agree nor disagree”. The lack of stance reflects what was described in the previous section, that discussions about asylum are missing in Taiwanese society.

Fig. 9.1

Public opinion on adopting (different kinds of) an asylum law

The question on the asylum law was split into three groups (split ballot), with each group having to agree or disagree with a slightly different statement—about a refugee act in general, about a refugee act that would exclude the Chinese, and about a refugee act that would include the Chinese. Interestingly, while the percentual difference in the answers to these different statements did not differ much: 22–25% agreed, 30–35% disagreed, and 41–45% neither agreed nor disagreed with adopting an asylum law, there was a clear trend of feeling anxious about including the Chinese in the refugee law. The answer that explicitly stated that the refugee act would also include the Chinese prompted the highest number of respondents to disagree (25%), the lowest number of respondents to agree (30%), and ultimately also had the most midpoint answers (45%). The author did not find any correlations with other variables, meaning that gender, age, education, region, or political leaning did not have any influence on the people's opinion.

If Taiwan were to pass an asylum law, 33% of the people believed it would worsen relations between Taiwan and China, 19% believed it would not, while 47% did not seem to have an opinion (see Fig. 9.2). There was no correlation with any other variables. These findings suggest that cross-strait relations did not seem to be the main issue.

Fig. 9.2

Public opinion on the consequences of passing an asylum law

If Taiwan passed such a law, 56% of the people believed it would be too financially costly for the Taiwanese state budget (see Fig. 9.2). The older the respondent (slight correlation) and the more educated (some correlation) the respondent, the more he or she was convinced of it. Also, political leaning was found to have slight correlation. This item was measured on a 1–7 scale from deep green to deep blue, with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leading the pan-green camp and the Kuomintang (KMT) the pan-blue one. The KMT is considered a pro-Chinese party and the DPP a party that wishes to limit Chinese influence in Taiwan. In this case, the more the respondent was bluer leaning, the more he or she was convinced that passing such a law would be financially costly.

On the other hand, 50% of people also believed passing such a law would highlight the human rights values of Taiwan and the difference between Taiwan and China (see Fig. 9.2). Men more than women thought so (slight correlation), and so did more educated people (slight correlation). A strong correlation was found for age and political leaning, with younger people and green-leaning voters more strongly believing that adopting an asylum law would highlight the human rights values of Taiwan and show the difference between Taiwan and China.

In all these three questions, the dominant answer was “neither agree nor disagree”, which can be interpreted, as has been explained above, as people not really having clear opinions on the issue.

When it came to potential beneficiaries of an asylum law in Taiwan (people who would/could be recognised as refugees under an asylum law), we asked Taiwanese citizens to indicate how positively or negatively they felt about various groups of people on a scale of 0 (cold/negative), through 50 (neutral), to 100 (warm/positive). Higher scores indicate more positive perceptions. Included were various groups, ethnic and religious, as well as known groups of refugees (such as the Rohingya) on the assumption that some of these could trigger a stronger reaction based on typical stereotypes. The category “immigrant”—which could potentially overlap with other categories—in Taiwan is mostly understood as migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries (there are about 720,000 of them, representing about 3% of the population) (Yen & Shih, 2023). Nevertheless, most of these groups—Muslims, immigrants, Africans, Rohingya, Uyghurs, and Tibetans—were viewed rather positively, with immigrants in general viewed most positively (63%), followed by Tibetans (62%), and then Uyghurs (59%). The Rohingya are viewed more positively than negatively but they had the most neutral answers of all (20%), which may indicate that they are not very well-known in Taiwan, and that people thus tend not to have an opinion (see Fig. 9.3). Chinese people from the PRC constituted an exception to the above-mentioned predominantly positive views—they were viewed negatively by 49% of the Taiwanese population.

Fig. 9.3

Feelings towards selected groups of people—Muslims, immigrants, Africans, Rohingya, Uyghur, and Tibetans

When examining the data in relation to demographic variables, in the case of the Chinese, Uyghurs, and Tibetans, age was found to be a predictor of attitude—with older respondents having been more positive about them, especially in the case of the Chinese (strong correlation). For the latter two, gender was also found to correlate, with men having been more positive than women, especially about the Tibetans (strong correlation). Education was found to be factor only in one case—immigrants—with educated people having had a more positive image of them (slight correlation).

When looking at the data through the lens of voter/party preference (measured by the question “If there were parliamentary elections this weekend, which party would you vote for?”), what stood out was that the coldest feelings towards all these groups, with the exception of the Chinese, were held by the respondents that said they would not vote. When not considering those who would not vote or don't know who to vote for—only looking at the five listed parties (DPP, KMT, TPP, NPP, and TSP)—then the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) voters were very negative in comparison with other party voters, holding the most negative views towards Muslims, Africans, Tibetans, and immigrants. On the other side of the spectrum, in all cases except for the Chinese, it was the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) voters who had the warmest feelings towards the listed foreigners. On the other hand, in the case of the Chinese, it was the same TSP voters who held the coldest feelings of all (mean value 34, on a scale 0–100 with 0 being very negative and 100 very positive feelings), followed by DPP voters (mean value 37). Not surprisingly, the KMT voters had the warmest feelings towards the Chinese (mean value 58).

In order to have a more nuanced understanding of the above-mentioned negative view of the Chinese people by the Taiwanese respondents, the author looked closely at their attitudes/feelings towards various segments of the Chinese population. The Taiwanese were most critical of Chinese politicians (76%), surprisingly followed by Chinese dissidents (57%) and tourists (57%). They were the least critical of Chinese students (33%) and spouses (32%) (see Fig. 9.4). While politicians did not come as a surprise, the dissidents did—they were not seen as negatively as the politicians but still, the majority of the respondents perceived them negatively. When explored further (as the data does not provide an answer to the “why”), in the interviews and other informal discussions, the word “dissident” (in Chinese yiyi fenzi, direct translation “someone who disagrees”, which is common vocabulary and is understood as dissident) was found to have a negative connotation, as it is connected to politics and politicians. Chinese tourists, while the biggest spenders in the tourism industry, were not seen positively. On the more receptive side were students from the PRC (known as lusheng)—increasingly a rare sight since the Chinese government announced a ban on new degree applicants to Taiwanese universities (Hayme, 2023)—and spouses from the PRC—predominantly Chinese women who have migrated to Taiwan through marriage over the last two decades. The latter two categories are people with whom the Taiwanese come in to contact with and may even interact with (more than with tourists who are confined to some certain touristic areas).

Fig. 9.4

Feelings towards different groups of Chinese people

When asked explicitly about accepting certain groups/nationalities of refugees, Taiwanese people were very favourable towards people from Hong Kong (66%), Tibet (58%), and also towards war refugees (e.g. from Syria) (55%), but again they were rather unfavourable towards refugees from China (44%) (see Fig. 9.5). These four categories of refugees were chosen based on the author's previous research on the refugee topic, highlighting the groups of people that constitute the most common cases in Taiwan (Kironska, 2022a). This was an experimental split ballot question, with each respondent only answering one question about the four types of refugees (the full number of respondents, 1350, was divided between the four categories). Thus, it did not make much sense to disaggregate the data, as the number of respondents in the disaggregated categories would be too low to represent a statistically significant case.

Fig. 9.5

Willingness to accept refugees from selected countries—China, Hong Kong, Tibet, and war refugees from other countries

The last question—on the resettlement of the Rohingya—was highly hypothetical but inspired by real events. It was hypothetical because there are no Rohingya in Taiwan and Taiwan is a rather impossible destination for them. Besides the fact that Taiwan does not have an asylum law, most Rohingya would, first of all, not have a legal way to get to Taiwan as they are stateless and do not possess identification documents such as a passport. Secondly, even if granted a special entry permit, according to Taiwanese law stateless persons who enter with a visitor visa are not eligible to apply for residency (Ministry of the Interior, 2018). Thus, Taiwanese people do not have any particular experience with this group of refugees and the assumption was that they would not be biased towards them. In one of the previous questions, described above, Taiwanese people, while having more positive than negative feelings towards the Rohingya, did not know them well, as evidenced by the large middle point percentage (see Fig. 9.3). When asked whether Taiwanese people supported the resettlement of the Rohingya to their country (the question contained a short explanation who the Rohingya were—a displaced minority from Myanmar, currently living in refugee camps in Bangladesh—in case the respondents were not familiar with the name), most Taiwanese (58%) supported their resettlement to Taiwan, while 29% did not (see Fig. 9.6). When looked at through the lens of other variables, very clearly younger people were more inclined towards resettling them than older people (strong correlation), and men a little more than women (some correlation).

Fig. 9.6

Public opinion on resettlement of the Rohingya people in Taiwan

Conclusion

Although Taiwan has accepted international human rights treaties as domestic law and thus has the obligation of non-refoulement, in the absence of an asylum system the island has not been able to handle people coming to Taiwan seeking protection. The International Review Committee on the Implementation of the International Human Rights Covenants, that Taiwan has adopted as domestic law, has repeatedly recommended a “speedy adoption of a refugee act, which should also include the principle of non-refoulement” (International Review Committee, 2022). There has, however, been little political will to implement such a system, likely because it is a complex issue involving the issue of cross-strait relations.

At the same time, there has been very little social dialogue on the issue and the political elites might have purposely kept it that way. There have been only very few surveys on public perceptions of refugees and a potential asylum law in Taiwan. This chapter fills this gap by presenting nationally representative data on the said issues.

While it is apparent from the data that there has long been a lack of discussion about asylum (a large part of the respondents chose the neutral answer, indicating that they do not have strong opinions on the issue), the data has also shown that people tend rather to agree that Taiwan needs a proper asylum system instead of dealing with incoming people on a case-by-case basis as has been done until now. Also, refugees are seen rather more positively than negatively—with people from China being an exception—and Taiwanese people are willing to accept refugees in Taiwan.

The results from this survey should, nevertheless, be understood in the context of the political climate in which the data has been collected—between April and June 2022—which was only a few weeks following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which fuelled concern over China’s plans for Taiwan (Lin & Culver, 2022). Many in Taiwan have speculated that the odds of an invasion by China have increased—with more people considering the likelihood of a Chinese invasion in the next ten years possible than not (61% see it as likely, 31% unlikely, and 8% are unsure) (see Fig. 9.7). With such fears for their own future, people tend to be more compassionate towards other people who are forced to leave their country of origin and seek refuge elsewhere (Banulescu-Bogdan, 2022). Moreover, the social desirability bias—the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that is viewed favourably by others—might have also played its role in such positive-leaning survey results (Phillips & Clancy, 1972). Whether potential refugees in Taiwan would be accepted by Taiwanese society or not is beyond the scope of this chapter but would certainly be an interesting topic to explore in a future research project.

Fig. 9.7

Public opinion on the likelihood of a Chinese invasion in the next ten years

At the same time, the relatively low willingness to accept Chinese people as refugees compared to the other groups brings us back to the issue of the complicated relations between Taiwan and China, highlighting the need for social dialogue before any solution—an asylum system either including or excluding Chinese nationals—is accepted.