Public Opinion: How Chinese People Feel About Other Countries
Tensions over Taiwan, the COVID-19 pandemic, trade and the war in Ukraine are affecting China’s feelings toward other countries.
In this visualization, the Center for International Security Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University ranked survey responses on the attitudes of the Chinese public toward countries and regions around the world.
China’s feelings toward other countries in 2023
A poll conducted by the Center, which randomly sampled more than 2,500 adults in mainland China in November 2022, found: Russia Came out quite a while ago.
Just under 60% of respondents view Russia favorably, with 19% viewing the country as “extremely favorable.” Compare that to just 12% of her who have viewed this. we in a positive light.
Let’s take a closer look at the data here. Percentages refer to the percentage of respondents who voted for that category.
| Country / Region | very Unfavorable |
somewhat Unfavorable |
neutral | somewhat preferable |
very preferable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸United States | 37.4% | 21.7% | 28.7% | 9.2% | 3.0% |
| 🇯🇵Japan | 38.4% | 19.1% | 29.4% | 10.7% | 2.3% |
| 🇮🇳India | 25.4% | 25.2% | 41.5% | 6.7% | 1.3% |
| 🇰🇷Korea | 17.4% | 21.0% | 47.6% | 11.8% | 2.1% |
| 🇪🇺European Union | 9.3% | 15.6% | 57.6% | 14.1% | 3.3% |
| Southeast Asia | 7.1% | 13.1% | 59.5% | 16.8% | 3.5% |
| 🇷🇺 Russia | 3.0% | 4.8% | 33.7% | 39.4% | 19.0% |
Japan In terms of overall disadvantage, Japan ranks just below the United States, but a slightly higher percentage of respondents consider Japan to be “very disadvantaged” compared to the United States. This is probably due to both modern tensions in the East China Sea over mutually claimed islands and historical tensions over the Sino-Japanese War.
Chinese people’s feelings about India Notably, this country also scored the lowest favorable rating with just 8%.
Additional findings
The survey also found that 39% of Chinese get information about international security from Chinese state media (mostly TV), and another 19% get information from government websites and official social accounts. Conversely, only 1.7% of people get their news from foreign websites or foreign social media. great firewall.
When asked about various international security issues, those with the highest proportion of Chinese ranked in the top three below.
- Pandemic (12.9%)
- Disputes over territory/territorial waters (12.9%)
- Sino-US relations (12.0%)
The pandemic’s high score reflects the more severe impact of COVID-19 on China.China’s borders closed for years, citizens faced thorough measures to reduce spread.
When it comes to other world events, the majority of Chinese have a more “oriental” perspective. For example, regarding the war in Ukraine, the report states:
“almost 80 percent Percentage of respondents believes the US and Western countries are most to blame [for the war]Less than 10 percent of respondents blamed Russia primarily. ”– Center for International Security Strategy, Tsinghua University
Overall, the views of the Chinese public reflect the exact opposite of many Western nations. These provide an important insight that it is not just the Chinese government that has a particular view of the world, but the Chinese people as well.
