MCLC: global public opinion on China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: global public opinion on China
***********************************************************

Source: SCMP (10/14/13):
http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1329353/global-public-op
inion-poll-reveals-increasingly-negative-view

Global public opinion poll reveals an increasingly negative view of China
China could do with an image makeover, judging by the increasingly
negative perceptions of the country revealed in a global public opinion
pollBy Kate Whitehead

First up the good news for China: around the world people increasingly see
the country as an emerging superpower, or indeed a superpower already. The
bad news? They don't much like China. Public opinion, especially in the
US, towards China is at an all-time low.

That's according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Centre, which
surprised Bruce Stokes, director of the global economic programme at the
Pew Research Centre's Global Attitudes Project. "This duality - seeing
China as a superpower and yet the declining favour - seems to contradict
itself, but maybe not. Maybe people see it, but they don't like it."

The survey throws up another seeming contradiction - the Chinese are the
most optimistic people in the world, confident about the economy and their
future, yet when pressed they reveal a host of worries and concerns - but
more of that later.

Listing the countries that like China and those that don't sounds like
schoolyard politics: the Russians, Pakistanis, Chileans, Venezuelans,
Brazilians and many in Africa are all fairly well disposed towards China,
while the US leads the pack of countries with an increasingly negative
perception of China, a club that includes Germany, South Korea, the
Philippines and Japan.

The Japan figure is especially low, with only 5 per cent having a
favourable opinion.

On the face of it, economics seems to explain some of the favourable
views. China buys a lot of copper from Chile, soya beans from Brazil and
oil from Venezuela. But it does not explain everything. China is a big
importer of German goods and yet only 28 per cent of Germans have a
favourable opinion of the country.

Stokes, who was in Hong Kong recently to give a talk to the Asia Society,
suggests this is because the Germans, like many in Europe where public
perception of China is falling, place a high value on human rights. "We
think one of the reasons that favour towards China is declining in Europe
is because people believe that Chinese do not respect their own people."

The survey interviewed 37,000 people in 39 countries from March to May
this year and found a marked shift in perception of the balance of power
resulting from China's economic rise. Interestingly, four of the largest
European countries - France, Germany, Spain and Britain - believe that
China has already overtaken the US. Stokes attributes this to China's
economic trajectory. It's generally thought that, having grown so far, so
fast, the country will keep going in that direction.

In Asia, there's a growing concern about China's military power, and
territorial disputes with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines are
fuelling negative opinion.

Stokes is at pains to point out that public perception doesn't necessarily
equate with fact. "More and more people around the world say China is the
world's leading economic power, but we know that's factually not true: the
US economy is bigger, the per capita income in the US is bigger."

But perception is in part reality, and there is no denying the perceived
shift from the US to China. Twenty of the countries in this year's poll
also took part in 2008. Comparing figures from the two surveys reveals
that the number of those that view the US as a superpower has fallen from
47 per cent to 41 per cent, while the number of those that see China as a
superpower has risen from 20 per cent to 34 per cent.

An interesting anomaly in the findings was that attitudes towards China
reveal a huge generation gap. Young people (18 to 29 years old) the world
over have a much more positive view of China than those that are over 50.
This cuts across all countries, from Turkey to the US, and accounts for
big differences.

More than three times as many young Turks as older Turks look favourably
on China, as do more than twice as many young Americans than older
Americans. In Britain the generational split is 58 per cent to 42 per cent
and in Poland its 59 per cent to 35 per cent. That pattern is reversed in
South Korea, where 58 per cent of young people have an unfavourable view
compared to 42 per cent of older South Koreans.

Stokes has two theories about this anomaly, neither of which can be
substantiated: the first is that people under 30 have grown up in a global
world and are more open and less critical of others; the second is that
young people could simply be naive and will become more cynical as they
get older.
"I think it's positive at this juncture that young people are fairly
favourable towards China, and they may carry some of those attitudes with
them as they age. That would be a good sign," says Stokes.

Japan saw a huge drop of 29 percentage points in how favourably it viewed
China. The animosity of the Japanese towards the Chinese and the Chinese
towards the Japanese is at a very high level, driven in part by the
attitudes of young people. At the root of the friction is the second world
war.
One question asked across the region was: Do you think Japan has
adequately apologised for the second world war? Overwhelmingly, the
Chinese and Koreans say no, while in Japan 63 per cent of people said yes,
including 18 per cent who say there is nothing to apologise for.

A protest over the disputed Diaoyu Islands, a source of friction between
Japan and China. Photo: ReutersThis has sown seeds of distrust between
China and Japan. That the distrust is greatest among young people, says
Stokes, suggests that it is something to do with the education system or
is fuelled by the media.

"The fact that it's the young people in China and Japan holding these
emotions is really depressing," he says. "If it was old people they will
die off and the memories will fade, but it's young people stirring the pot
and this doesn't just happen by accident. It's stuff on the internet or
being taught in schools. It could be fixed and it's not being fixed.
That's a problem."

As for the outstanding optimism of the Chinese, no matter how the
pollsters phrased the question the Chinese come out looking confident.
They believe the economy is doing well and will continue to improve, that
their children will be better off than their parents and their personal
situation is rosy.

Yet that optimistic outlook is held hand in hand with some very real
concerns about inflation, inequality between the rich and the poor and
worries about the safety of food and medicine as well as air and water
pollution.

Stokes suggests these concerns are a sign of the country's evolving middle
class that is no longer willing to put up with the things that their
parents put up with, but they could hint at trouble ahead. "It may simply
be that people feel more at ease voicing their concerns about China -
that's a good thing, that people are more outspoken - or it could be that
these problems are getting worse."

There's no way of knowing whether the government in Beijing pays any
attention to research like this - which is freely available online
atpewglobal.org <http://pewglobal.org/> It would doubtless be pleased to
see the rapidly increasing global perception of China as a superpower, but
what about the unfavourable public opinion, the discovery that becoming a
superpower also alienates you from people?

When the centre conducted its first study in 2002 it was expecting to
learn something about the impact of globalisation. Instead, the shock
finding when the results were released in 2003 was the surge in
anti-American sentiment, in a large part due to involvement in Iraq. The
US government responded by setting up a new department focused on public
diplomacy.

"It would make total sense that if the Chinese see this data - and their
own surveys must show the same thing - that they would say 'we need to fix
this, we need public diplomacy,'" says Stokes.

There are a couple of obvious things China could do to boost its global
image, he says, such as having fewer territorial disputes with its
neighbours and improving its human rights record.

What helped the US bounce back from poor image ratings during the Bush
administration, when only 30 per cent of Chinese had a positive attitude
towards George W. Bush, was the election of Barack Obama.

"It shot up dramatically, and six out of 10 people had a positive attitude
towards Obama. It's been downhill ever since," says Stokes.
Time will tell whether China will be the world's next superpower. In the
1980s the sure bet was Japan to overtake the US.

"Japan kind of imploded and the US found its mojo again," says Stokes. "If
you look at the studies that have been done by the National Intelligence
Council and other people that project ahead to 2030 and 2050, they all
predict that China will surpass the US. We'll see."

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