Larry Downing/ReutersFifty-five percent of the American public holds a favorable view of China, while 59 percent of the Chinese public has a similar feeling about the United States, according to a new survey.HONG KONG — Two-thirds of Americans now see China as a serious or potential military threat to the United States. Nearly six in 10 Chinese believe their country is destined to become the world’s leading superpower, and increasing numbers of everyday Chinese believe the United States is trying to prevent them from achieving that status.
Most Americans don’t believe that U.S. media outlets report truthfully about China, and about half of Chinese feel the same way about their media. Six in 10 Americans think the U.S. government has done a poor job handling relations with China — although things have improved since 2007 — while two-thirds of Chinese think Beijing is mishandling relations with Washington.
For the general Chinese public, corruption is the No. 1 concern, followed by jobs and the economy, a growing wealth gap and the rise in housing prices. But Chinese opinion leaders worry most about a decline in morality, followed by concerns over Taiwan, while business leaders cite HIV/AIDS as their top issue.
These are some of the takeaways from U.S.-China Public Perceptions, a new opinion poll from the Committee of 100, a nonpartisan Chinese-American group in New York that promotes cultural exchanges. The survey was conducted in December 2011 and January of this year, with 4,153 interviews in China and 1,400 in the United States.
Fifty-five percent of the American public holds a favorable view of China, while 59 percent of the Chinese public has a similar feeling about the United States.
“The two peoples like each other,” said Charlie Woo, a Committee of 100 member and the chief executive of Megatoys, a toy manufacturer based in California and Hong Kong. (His interview with the broadcaster Tavis Smiley about the poll results is here.)
But other polls this year have turned up decidedly less rosy results about the bilateral connection. A Pew survey found that just 40 percent of Americans viewed China favorably, down from 51 percent last year but about the same as in 2007. Year-by-year results from Pew can be found here.
A recent Gallup-China Daily USA poll showed just 42 percent of Americans with a favorable view of China, with 44 percent unfavorable. Among those Americans who said they closely followed news about China, the favorability went down markedly, to 54 percent unfavorable. But more than half of younger respondents, aged 18-34, saw China in a favorable light.
About eight in 10 Americans think a close relationship with China is a good thing, Gallup found, although six in 10 believe China’s growing influence in the world is a bad thing.
When Gallup posed an open-ended question in February about which nation was the United States’ leading enemy, China was second only to Iran and was seen as far more worrisome than the rest of the top five put together — North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr. Woo, the Committee of 100 member, did note that “on both sides, there’s a lack of trust.” Among U.S. business leaders, for example, 55 percent believed there was poor protection of intellectual property rights in China — twice the percentage the committee found in its 2007 survey. U.S. executives said corruption was their No. 2 concern about doing business in China.
The committee’s survey found that the countries deemed most important to Americans were, in descending order, China, Britain, Japan and Israel. For the Chinese it was the United States, Russia, Britain and Japan.
Three-quarters of Chinese respondents say their country is on the right track, down from nearly 90 percent five years ago. Conversely, 36 percent of Americans think the United States is on the right track — about the same as in 2007.
There is a clear indication from recent polls that everyday Chinese and Americans see value and importance in a stronger bilateral relationship, although the lack-of-trust issue remains a concern. So for a flash survey among globally engaged Rendezvous readers, what is your take on Sino-American relations?
What are you most worried about? And what are you encouraged by? Tell us what you think about human rights in China, food safety, environmental degradation, a downturn in the Chinese economy, political gridlock in Washington, military tensions in the Asia-Pacific region — or anything else.
And as always, speak freely.