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Poll: China viewed more favorable and powerful
By Chen Weihua (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-05 07:17
A new poll shows China is viewed more favorably and as increasingly more powerful by people in the United States while they view their own country as becoming less important.
The survey, released Thursday by the Pew Center, was conducted among 2,000 members of the general public and 642 members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) from late October to early November.
While results show a broad recognition of China's growing power, the general public takes a less benign view of China's rise compared to CFR members.
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What is surprising is a growing belief among CFR members that China will be the most important US ally in the future. Some 58 percent of CFR members surveyed say China will be the most important ally, while India (55 percent) and Brazil (33 percent) come second and third. An equally surprising fewer number say the same about Japan and Great Britain.
"It is surprising that China comes to the top. That's much higher than we thought four years ago," said Andrew Kohut, president of Pew Research Center.
Meanwhile, China's emerging power is viewed as more worrisome by the general public than by the foreign policy experts. There has been almost no change since 2005 in the percentage of the public saying that China poses a major threat to the US (53 percent now and 52 percent in 2005).
While Iran is mentioned most often as the country that poses the greatest danger to the US, China continues to rank among the countries frequently named by the public as a danger to the US, according to the report.
While many Americans continue to view China as a threat to the US, a Pew Global Attitudes survey in June found that China's image among the public had improved. Half expressed a favorable opinion of China, compared with 38 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. In April 2008, opinion of China was almost evenly divided (39 percent favorable and 42 percent unfavorable).
The poll also found that 41 percent of the public believe the US plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today than it did 10 years ago. And while the foreign policy opinion leaders differ with the public on many issues, a growing percentage of CFR members agree that the US is a less important world leader. Forty-four percent of the CFR members say the US is a less important global leader, up from 25 percent in early September 2001, just before the Sept 11 attacks.
The poll also shows that 44 percent of the public believes China is the world's leading economic power, while just 27 percent chose the US. In February 2008, 41 percent said the US was the top economic power and only 30 percent said China.
"That is because Americans feel bad about their economy and things are not going well, while China seems to have survived the crisis in much better shape," said James Lindsay, senior vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
On the military side, only 18 percent of the public view China as the world's leading military power, while an overwhelming 63 percent name the US.
James Fallows, a national correspondent of the Atlantic Monthly who has lived in China and has written frequently about China in the past few years, told China Daily that he is not surprised by the gap between the "elite" opinion and the views of the general public on China.
"It's natural that the people covered in the CFR survey would have more personal familiarity and experience with their counterparts in China. They are more likely to be exposed to the positive opportunities as well as the challenges, of relations between China and the US in particular," he said.
