Chinese university deletes study forecasting win for Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan election
- Fudan team predicts independence-leaning president will be re-elected on Saturday with nearly 60 per cent of the vote
- But their research is taken down from website just hours after it is released
It concluded that Tsai, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, would garner nearly 60 per cent of the vote to defeat her two Beijing-friendly rivals and be re-elected for a second term.
The study was the result of more than a year of research by a team led by Tang Shiping, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai.
It made the prediction using statistical modelling based on demographic, economic, political and social data from the self-ruled island, the university’s Centre for Complex Decision Analysis said in a statement releasing the results on Thursday.
The centre said it wanted to release the forecast just ahead of the election to allow people to compare it with the outcome. But hours after the study was posted, it was taken down from the university’s website. The centre and Tang did not return calls seeking comment.
Taiwan’s heated election has seen Tsai campaigning on the need to safeguard the island’s sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s threats. Her main rival, Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party, has advocated for closer ties with mainland China after relations deteriorated under Tsai’s administration. The third contender, James Soong Chu-yu, from the mainland-friendly People First Party, has been largely ignored in the race after declaring his presidential bid just two months before the vote.
Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory and wants to bring the democratic island back under its control, by military means if necessary. It has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, including staging military drills near the island and poaching its diplomatic allies, since Tsai was elected president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.
Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Institute of System Reform, a think tank, said releasing such a prediction on the Taiwan election was highly sensitive and could have an impact on the vote.
“So Fudan University might have deleted the forecast because of [a stricter policy] on managing sensitive topics,” Peng said, adding that Taiwan had banned opinion poll results from being disclosed since the new year.
Why China’s crackdown on academic freedom will backfire
The university charter now highlights the “Chinese Communist Party’s leadership under the guidance of Marxism and socialism”, with other additions including “upholding the leadership of the CCP” and “implementing the party’s direction, principles and policy”.
References to the university’s core values – such as academic integrity, and encouraging students to pursue the virtues of unity, servitude and sacrifice – have been replaced with “patriotic contribution”, while “free thinking” and “academic independence” have been removed.
