Op-Ed Contributors

Youth lead in positive notions

By Fang Lexian (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-01-29 07:18

Younger generation both in China and US more optimistic about fruitful partnership and mutually beneficial future

Political circles and academia in China and the United States have their own perceptions of China's rise and Beijing-Washington relationship. Many surveys have also focused on the two issues, especially because of the change in global power framework caused by the global economic crisis.

After experiencing twists and turns last year, Sino-American relations saw the opening of a new chapter in cooperative partnership with President Hu Jintao's state visit to the US earlier this month. Analyzing the mutual perception of China and the US is thus crucial to understanding the development of bilateral ties.

Recent surveys conducted in the US show that more Americans are impressed by China's rising international status and importance.

According to the 2010 national survey of American public opinion and US foreign policy, conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 54 percent Americans said China is "very important" for the US. The 2008 survey placed the United Kingdom and Canada in the top two positions. A majority of Americans, (68 percent) said the US should have friendly cooperation and engagement with China; only 28 percent (down 5 points from 2008) said Washington should work to limit Beijing's growing power.

These surveys suggest that even ordinary Americans today realize the importance of China-US ties. The recent Asia policy of the US reflects the same sentiment.

The new Pew Research Center survey was released earlier this month. Forty-seven percent of the respondents considered China to be the world's leading economic power, and only 31 percent said the US still held that position. The latest survey result is almost the opposite of the one in 2008.

But we should not forget that there is a difference between Americans' knowledge of China and China in reality. Many Americans mistake China to be the world's leading economic power because China holds a huge amount of US debts and its economy has been resilient as opposed to the US' sluggish economic growth.

The fact remains that a majority of Americans know little about China's low per capita GDP, low per capita income, and human development index and the huge gap between its eastern and western regions. Besides, some American political elites and media keep harping on China's rapid rise as a global power. The exaggeration of China's strength and status clouds many Americans' vision and prevents them from getting a comprehensive and objective picture of China's strength.

US surveys show Americans are ambivalent about China's rise with prudent acceptance and tough anti-China positions.

According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs' public survey, three-fourths of Americans said China's economy would someday become as large as that of the US. Half of the respondents said if China's economy reached the size of the US, it would have an equally positive and negative effect, but the other half thought the effect would be "mostly negative". And roughly half of them said that China holding a huge amount of US debts would pose a threat to vital American interests in the next 10 years. But only 17 percent of them said they were "very worried" that China would become a military threat to the US in the future. Comparatively speaking, more Americans see China as an economic threat to their country.

There is duality in Americans' policy, too. A strong majority of them prefer friendly cooperation and engagement with China instead of actively trying to stunt its growth. While some prefer to take tough actions against China in trade, as a whole, more Americans have a positive attitude toward China's rise.

The Pew Research Center survey suggests that though Americans see China as a rising global power, most of them are rational when it comes to Sino-American relations. Only 20 percent of the respondents said China was the biggest threat to the US, and 22 percent described China as an adversary. Forty-three percent of them said China is a serious problem, but not an adversary, and 27 percent said China is not much of a problem. The view that China is not a problem is especially common among young people; 43 percent of 18-29 year-olds hold this view.

Chinese people's perception of Washington's China policy and Sino-American relations shows similar perplexity. China Daily and Horizon Research Consultancy Group jointly conducted a poll, The US in Chinese Eyes, recently. Most (90.9 percent) of the respondents said Sino-American ties were "important", with more than half saying they were "very important". About 60 percent of them said Sino-US relations would remain stable, while some 25 percent said they would get better. And nearly 70 percent said the world's two largest economies are competitors and partners both in trade and economics.

But roughly 53 percent of the respondents said bilateral relations deteriorated last year, during which the two sides sparred over the Dalai Lama, arms sales to Taiwan, joint military exercises by the US and the Republic of Korea in the Yellow Sea and Washington's intervention in the South China Sea issue. An overwhelming majority said the US was to blame for the deterioration in bilateral relations.

In other words, Chinese people pay special attention to America's political and military attitude toward China and the threat it poses to China's national security.

But the surveys in the US and China present a similar picture of the youth in both countries. People below 30 in the US as well as China are more optimistic about Sino-American ties than those in other age groups.

Reason still plays the decisive role in Chinese people's analysis of US actions and Sino-American relations. And most Chinese and Americans would like to see and treat each other positively. The two countries' governments should nurture this positive perception to build a harmonious future.

The author is a research scholar with the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China.

China Forum

(China Daily 01/29/2011 page5)