China and the European Union 2012037897, 9780415630795, 9780203562925

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China and the European Union

The European Union is China’s largest trading partner, and Chinese views of the EU are of crucial importance in shaping how the relationship will develop in the future, especially as the new Chinese leadership takes power. This book presents the findings of an extensive research project into the views of both elite groups (government officials, business leaders, academics, media practitioners and social activists) and the Chinese public towards Europe and the European Union. It considers attitudes on a wide range of subjects and reaches a number of interesting, encouraging conclusions. These include the fact that as Chinese people’s knowledge of, and travel to, Europe become more extensive, Chinese attitudes towards Europe become more positive; and that Chinese people have a high regard for European culture and a high degree of trust in Europeans – though there are significant differences between different Chinese groups concerning controversial issues in the China–EU relationship. Overall, the book concludes that Chinese public opinion supports strong bilateral relations. Lisheng Dong is Professor of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China. Zhengxu Wang is Deputy Director of the China Policy Institute and Lecturer at the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham, UK. Henk Dekker is Professor of Political Socialization and Integration at the Graduate School for Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University, the Netherlands.

China policy series Series Editor Zheng Yongnian

China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, UK

  1 China and the New International Order Edited by Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian   2 China’s Opening Society The non-­state sector and governance Edited by Zheng Yongnian and Joseph Fewsmith   3 Zhao Ziyang and China’s Political Future Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne   4 Hainan – State, Society, and Business in a Chinese Province Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard   5 Non-­governmental Organizations in China The rise of dependent autonomy Yiyi Lu   6 Power and Sustainability of the Chinese State Edited by Keun Lee, Joon-­Han Kim and Wing Thye Woo   7 China’s Information and Communications Technology Revolution Social changes and state responses Edited by Xiaoling Zhang and Yongnian Zheng   8 Socialist China, Capitalist China Social tension and political adaptation under economic globalization Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne   9 Environmental Activism in China Lei Xei 10 China’s Rise in the World ICT Industry Industrial strategies and the catch-­up development model Lutao Ning

11 China’s Local Administration Traditions and changes in the sub-­national hierarchy Edited by Jae-­Ho Chung and Tao-­chiu Lam 12 The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor Culture, reproduction and transformation Zheng Yongian 13 China’s Trade Unions – How Autonomous Are They? Masaharu Hishida, Kazuko Kojima, Tomoaki Ishii and Jian Qiao 14 Legitimating the Chinese Communist Party since Tiananmen A critical analysis of the stability discourse Peter Sandby-­Thomas 15 China and International Relations The Chinese view and the contribution of Wang Gungwu Zheng Yongnian 16 The Challenge of Labour in China Strikes and the changing labour regime in global factories Chris King-­chi Chan 17 The Impact of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre Edited by Jean-­Philippe Béja 18 The Institutional Dynamics of China’s Great Transformation Edited by Xiaoming Huang 19 Higher Education in Contemporary China Beyond expansion Edited by W. John Morgan and Bin Wu 20 China’s Crisis Management Edited by Jae Ho Chung 21 China Engages Global Governance A new world order in the making? Gerald Chan, Pak K. Lee and Lai-­Ha Chan 22 Political Culture and Participation in Rural China Yang Zhong 23 China’s Soft Power and International Relations Hongyi Lai and Yiyi Lu

24 China’s Climate Policy Chen Gang 25 Chinese Society: Change and Transformation Edited by Li Peilin 26 China’s Challenges to Human Security Foreign relations and global implications Edited by Guoguang Wu 27 China’s Internal and International Migration Edited by Li Peilin and Laurence Roulleau-­Berger 28 The Rise of Think Tanks in China Xufeng Zhu 29 Governing Health in Contemporary China Yanzhong Huang 30 New Dynamics in Cross-­Taiwan Straits Relations How far can the rapprochement go? Edited by Weixing Hu 31 China and the European Union Edited by Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker

China and the European Union

Edited by Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker

First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 selection and editorial material, Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data China and the European Union / edited by Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. European Union–Public opinion. 2. Chinese–Attitudes. 3. Public opinion–China. I. Dong, Lisheng. JN30.C4893 2013 341.242'20951–dc23 2012037897 ISBN: 978-0-415-63079-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-56292-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman byWearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents



List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors Foreword

Part i

ix xi xiv xviii

Introduction

1

  1 Introduction

3

H en k D e k k er and Z hen g x u W an g

Part ii

Citizens   2 Chinese views of the EU: overview of survey findings

9 11

L i Z hang and Y ing Y u

  3 Attitudes towards the EU among Chinese urban citizens: in search of an explanation

37

H enk D ekker and J olanda v an der N oll

  4 Knowledge and perception: how does an understanding of the EU’s internal complexities affect the EU’s image among Chinese people?

59

Z hen g x u W an g and B o g dan P opesc u

  5 Chinese affect towards European culture: levels, determinants and consequences C hristian W elzel , T i m o graf and S tefanie R eher

81

viii   Contents   6 The determinants and consequences of Chinese trust in Europeans

109

J an D elhey and T i m o G raf

  7 Chinese views of Europe and international affairs: a comparative perspective

132

P hilip E v erts

Part iii

Elites and citizens

147

  8 Opinions of Chinese elites on the most controversial issues affecting the EU’s China policy

149

L isheng D ong and L ü jun Z hou

  9 Leaders’ views and public opinion: different perceptions of the EU in urban China

177

L ong S un

10 Media influence on ethnocentrism towards Europeans

191

D aniela S tock m ann

11 From antagonist to model? The function and place of Europe in Chinese middle school history textbooks

210

N icola S pakowski

Part IV

Conclusion

231

12 Conclusions, reflections and perspectives

233

L isheng D ong



Index

252

Figures

1.1 Map of China 2.1 Affects of the Chinese public towards major world powers 2.2 Affects of members of Chinese elites towards major world powers 2.3 Affects of the Chinese public towards the people of major world powers 2.4 Affects of members of Chinese elites towards the people of major world powers 2.5 Shared values between China and major world powers 2.6 Comparison of the situations in the EU area and in China 2.7 Chinese public opinion on the most influential political actor in the world 2.8 Chinese public opinion on the most influential economic actor in the world 2.9 Chinese elite opinion on the most influential political actor in the world 2.10 Chinese elite opinion on the most influential economic actor in the world 2.11 Chinese public and elite views on the extent to which the EU takes account of the interests of China in making important international decisions 2.12 Evaluation of the friendliness of China’s foreign relations 2.13 Chinese views on the prospects for the China–EU relationship 2.14 Chinese descriptions of the prospects for China–EU relations 2.15 Elite satisfaction with the EU’s China policy 2.16 Elite groups’ perception of EU–China mutual understanding 2.17 Business elite’s perception of issues that will affect China–EU economic and trade relations 2.18 Elite groups’ perception of the human rights issue 2.19 Elite groups’ perception of the climate change issue 2.20 Elite groups’ perception of the exchange rate of the yuan 4.1 Chinese attitudes towards the EU, the United States, Russia and Japan

6 17 17 17 18 18 19 21 21 21 22 23 24 24 24 25 28 31 32 33 34 70–71

x   Figures 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2

Affects of the Chinese public towards major world powers (%) Affects of Chinese elite groups towards major world powers (%) Educational attainment of respondents Whether respondents have travelled abroad Basic knowledge about the EU Evaluating the friendship level of China’s major foreign relationships 9.3 The most suitable word to describe China–EU relations 9.4 Evaluating the prospects for China–EU relations

134 135 169 170 181 184 184 185

Tables

2.1 Attitudes towards the EU’s role regarding international issues 2.2 Chinese information sources on Europe and the EU 2.3 Ranking of areas for strengthening cooperation between China and the EU after weighing first and second choices 2.4 Ranking of controversial issues that affect the EU’s China policy after weighting the first and second choices 3.1 Correlations with attitudes towards the EU 3.2 Attitudes towards the EU, and their predictors 4.1 Summary statistics 4.2 The impact of knowledge concerning the EU on attitudes towards the EU 4.3 Factors affecting Chinese attitudes towards the United States, Japan and Russia 4.4 The impact of knowledge concerning the EU on perceptions of the EU’s role and China–EU relations 4.5 Variance inflation factors of variables 4.6 Factors affecting Chinese attitudes towards the Americans, Japanese and Russians 5.1 Representativeness of the reduced sample 5.2 Aggregate responses to the ‘affect’ items 5.3 Disaggregated responses to the ‘affect’ items 5.4 OLS regressions on ‘affect towards Europeans’ 5.5 Opinions about the EU’s role in the world 5.6 Opinions about China–EU relations 5.7 Opinions about ‘the EU better than China?’ 5.8 Bivariate correlations with ‘affect towards European culture’ 5.9 Effects of affect towards European culture on attitudes towards Europe and the EU 5.10 Cross-­tabulations of opinions about ‘the EU’s role in the world’ 5.11 Cross-­tabulations of opinions about ‘China–EU relations’ 5.12 Cross-­tabulations of opinions about ‘the EU better than China?’

20 26 29 30 46 52–53 67 69 73 76 77 78 89 90 91–93 95 98 99 99 100 102–103 104 105 105

xii   Tables 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14 8.15

Comparing images Enemy and ally images: correlation analysis Trustworthiness ratings by socio-­demographic group Enemy and ally images: correlation analysis by socio-­demographic group Differences in trust scores OLS regressions on ‘perceived trustworthiness of Europeans’ Perceptions of the EU’s role in the world Perceptions of the EU’s role in the world by trust levels Bivariate correlations with ‘perceived trustworthiness of Europeans’ Perceptions of China–EU relations Perceptions of China–EU relations by trust level Favorable attitudes to other countries and people Attitudes towards four major powers and China’s relationship with them Peaceful or aggressive? Trustworthy or not? Assessment of the role of the EU in addressing international problems A summary of collected elite questionnaires The most controversial issues (percentage of the elites) The second most controversial issues (percentage of the elites) Indexes of the selected choices of controversial issues One-­way ANOVA of the indexes for different elite groups Distribution of the independent variables in the sample (1) Distribution of the independent variables in the sample (2) Multinomial regression model on the factors influencing the selection of human rights as the most and second most controversial issue Multinomial regression model on the factors influencing the selection of the Tibet issue as the most and second most controversial issue Multinomial regression model on the factors influencing the selection of intellectual property rights as the most and second most controversial issue Multinomial regression model on the factors influencing the selection of institutional differences as the most and second most controversial issue Contingency table for gender and various groups Contingency table for educational attainment and various groups Contingency table for experience of travelling abroad and various groups Central and diverse tendencies of variables for the different groups

115 116 117 118 120 122 123 124 124 125 125 133 136 137 137 141 151 153 154 156 157 158 159 161 163 164 167 168 171 172 173

Tables   xiii 8.16 One-­way ANOVA for each group 9.1 Distribution of elite questionnaires 9.2 Measuring knowledge about the EU 9.3 Objective knowledge about the EU 9.4 Chinese perceptions of the most important international actors 9.5 The EU in a positive role regarding international affairs? 9.6 Chinese favorable impressions of other countries or areas 9.7 Chinese favorable impressions of the people of other countries 9.8 Pro-­EU or pro-­Russia 9.9 Sources of information 9.10 The most important information sources about the EU 9.11 Logistic regression of attitude towards the EU 9.12 Pro-­EU or pro-­Russia within the Chinese elites 10.1 Media effects on perceived identity difference between Chinese and EU citizens 10.2 Media effects on identity difference between Chinese and Americans, Japanese and Russians 10.3 Effects of media types on perceived identity difference between Chinese and EU citizens 10.4 Effects of exposure to blogs and bulletin board system (BBS) forums on identity difference between Chinese and EU citizens among Internet users

174 179 180 180 181 182 182 183 183 186 186 187 188 199 200–201 203 204

Contributors

Henk Dekker is Professor of Political Socialization and Integration and Vice-­ Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University. He received the Nevitt Sanford Award from the International Society of Political Psychology. His research focuses on explaining citizens’ political behaviour and orientations, including voting behaviour, political knowledge, political cynicism, nationalism, attitudes towards ethnic minorities and attitudes towards foreign countries and international cooperation. Jan Delhey is Professor of Sociology at Jacobs University Bremen. He studied Sociology in Bamberg (Germany) and Groningen (the Netherlands) and received his doctoral degree from the Free University Berlin. His main research areas are cross-­national comparisons of quality of life, subjective well-­being and trust. He is an expert on international trust and has written extensively on trust among Europeans. His research is published in leading European and international journals such as the American Sociological Review, the European Sociological Review and Social Science Research. Lisheng Dong is Professor of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China. He is the 2012 recipient of the Pierre de Celles Award of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration for the best paper titled “Imitating the West? – A Survey of Chinese Civil Servants on Public Sector Reform” presented during the IASIA 2011 annual conference. He has published 16 books, 30 refereed articles and 19 book chapters. Professor Dong is editor of The EU’s Experience in Integration: A Model for ASEAN + 3? (Peter Lang AG, 2007) and author of the monograph A Comparative Study of the Central–Local Government Relations in EU Member States (Beijing: Press of the China University of Political Science and Law, 2000). Philip Everts studied Law and Sociology at the University of Groningen and received his doctorate from Leiden University (1983). He was Director of the Institute for International Studies, Leiden University, from 1970 to 2003, emeritus since 2003 and is now at the Department of Political Science, Leiden University. His most recent books include Public Opinion and the International Use of Force (Routledge, 2001, ed., with Pierangelo Isernia), Demo­cracy and

Contributors   xv Military Force (Macmillan, 2002) and De Nederlanders en de wereld. Publieke opinies na de Koude Oorlog (Van Gorcum, 2008). Timo Graf is a PhD fellow at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) at Jacobs University Bremen, where he researches intercivilizational perceptions. Previously, he studied Political Science at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, and has until recently been working as a full-­time research associate at Jacobs University Bremen for the EU Commission’s FP7 project ‘Chinese Views of the EU’. Bogdan Popescu is a PhD student within the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is interested in authoritarian regimes and human rights. He has an MPhil in Politics from the University of Nottingham (2012) and an MA from the University of Essex (2009), and has been working as a research assistant for the project ‘Chinese Views of the EU’ for Dr Zhengxu Wang at the University of Nottingham. Stefanie Reher is a DPhil Student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford and a member of Nuffield College. Previously she worked as a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Democracy at Leuphana University Lüneburg in Germany. Her current work focuses on the link between issue salience-­based representation and political support, while her research interests also include electoral behaviour, value change and social capital. Nicola Spakowski is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Freiburg. Her research is dedicated to twentieth-­century and contemporary China, in particular questions of historiography, history teaching and the popularization of history, feminism and women’s studies, and the internationalization, globalization and regionalization of China. She is author, among others, of Helden, Monumente, Traditionen. Nationale Identität und historisches Bewußtsein in der VR China (Heroes, monuments, traditions. National identity and historical consciousness in the People’s Republic of China) (Lit, 1999) and ‘Mit Mut an die Front’. Die militärische Beteiligung von Frauen in der kommunistischen Revolution Chinas (1925–1949) (‘Courageously to the front’. Women’s military participation in the Chinese Communist revolution, 1925–1949) (Böhlau Verlag, 2009). Daniela Stockmann is Tenured Assistant Professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Born in Germany, she received an MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research on political communication and public opinion in China has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Political Communication and China Quarterly, among others. Her book Media Commercialization and

xvi   Contributors Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge University Press, in press) examines the impact of media commercialization on the production of news and media credibility among audiences in China. Long Sun is Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. In 2012 and 2013, Dr Sun is serving as Marie Curie Research Fellow at the China Policy Institute, the University of Nottingham. His main research fields include local elections, contentious politics, democratic transition and political methodology. In the past five years, he has produced more than ten articles related to Chinese local politics and published a book titled The Civic Participation: An Empirical Study of Attitudes and Behavior among Beijing Residents (Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu ban she, 2011). Jolanda van der Noll is Research Associate at Jacobs University in Bremen and PhD Fellow in the field of attitude formation, value change and intercultural communication at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (Germany). She studied Political Science at Leiden University, graduating in 2006, and Migration, Ethnic Relations and Multiculturalism at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, graduating in 2008. She has published about attitudes and about Islamophobia. Zhengxu Wang is Deputy Director at the China Policy Institute (CPI) and Lecturer at the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham. From 2009 to 2012 he was Executive Manager of the ‘Chinese Views of the EU’ research project funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme. His current research interests include public opinions and democratic values of Chinese citizens, perceptions of other powers in international politics, and institutional changes and political reforms in China’s political system. He publishes widely in the major academic journals, and frequently comments on China’s political and international issues in the media. Christian Welzel is Professor of Political Culture Research at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany, and Visiting Professor at the Laboratory for Comparative Social Science, Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg, Russia. He is also Vice-­President of the World Values Survey and author of numerous scholarly publications. His research interests focus on cultural change, human empowerment, value orientations, democratization, social capital, trust and happiness. Ying Yu is Research Fellow in the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. She was awarded a PhD in Politics at the University of Durham. The title of her PhD thesis is ‘Contentious activities and Party-­state responses in contemporary China: Investigating China’s democratisation during its modernisation’. Her interests and publications

Contributors   xvii range broadly from the ‘the role and future of civil society in a transitional China’ to ‘governance and nationalism during the Beijing Olympic Games’, from ‘the political economy of policy response to Chinese rural migrant workers’ to ‘contemporary religious movements (Christianity) in China’. Li Zhang is Lecturer at the School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. She holds a PhD in Communications Studies from the University of Leeds and was awarded the European Studies in Asia (ESiA) Young Academic’s fellowship by the Asia Europe Foundation in 2009. Apart from articles in peer-­reviewed journals, she is the author of News Media and EU–China Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Her research is interdisciplinary and focuses on mass communication and foreign policy, media and politics, news management and public diplomacy, EU–China relations, and perceptions of the EU in Asia. Lüjun Zhou is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology of Peking University. His research interests include research methodology in the social sciences, social statistics and labour sociology.

Foreword

As China grows in global power and influence, it is critically important for the European Union to forge a close and cooperative relationship with it. Equally, China needs good relations with the EU, its largest single market. At times of financial crisis, both sides need each other even more. But the China–EU partnership is complex and often difficult. More effective mutual policies towards each other have to be based on a thorough understanding of the image of the EU in Chinese minds and China’s behaviour in its interaction with the EU. China and the EU are committed to what they call a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’, but China–EU ties have not always been smooth. Too often, Chinese and Europeans misunderstand each other. A better understanding of the opportunities and challenges in China will enable the EU institutions and nation-­states to develop an appropriate response to the rise of China as an economic and political giant. It will also enhance the ability of the EU and of European institutions in the economic, political, cultural and educational sectors to take the necessary steps towards developing more effective relations with China. However, as some scholars have noted, there are practical obstacles. First, there is the issue of Europe’s identity and role. The absence of an EU consensus on the final goal of European integration between policy-­makers and ordinary citizens has created a confused and perplexing image for those outside the borders of the EU27. This in turn has obscured the EU’s relationship with China. Second, until recently there has been little scientific information about how the EU and China–EU relations are perceived in China. Further, given the conventional emphasis on the activities and importance of political elites, the perceptions of ordinary Chinese citizens has received even less attention, even though they constitute almost one-­fifth of the world’s population. Thus, there is indeed a strong need for new research projects that rely on public opinion polls, interviews and media analysis. Specifically, the scholarly and policy communities urgently need a research project with three qualities. First, it must go beyond the overall impression of the EU and enable us to understand how Chinese people perceive the EU in various issue areas, such as the trade relationship, energy security, human rights, governance and the rule of law. Second, it must look into the different sections of Chinese society, to enable us to understand how the general public as well as the government, intellectual and

Foreword   xix business elites, and social activists (NGO leaders, for example) perceive the EU. And third, it must go directly to the Chinese people using face-­to-face research methods, such as interviews, questionnaire surveys and focus groups. This book presents the results of a three-­year research project, ‘Chinese Views of the EU’, funded by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme, that has investigated in detail what China thinks of the EU and examined the implications. The project was conducted by a six-­member consortium that was led by the China Policy Institute of the University of Nottingham and included the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as China coordinator, and also Renmin University of China, Leiden University in the Netherlands, Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London. Each member of this unique and complementary team is embedded in broad professional and institutional networks from which resources and support are mobilized and through which the findings of the study are communicated and disseminated. The ambitious and innovative studies of this project required close collaboration among the project partners. We hope readers will agree that the book achieves three major advances in our knowledge about how Chinese view the EU. First, it is informative concerning the perception of the EU by different sections of Chinese society, their perception and understanding of the EU in different issue areas, and these through a rich body of comprehensive data collected via multiple research methods. Second, the research findings as presented in the book significantly advance our understanding of the EU’s image in China. Third, it is to be hoped that these findings can be translated into concrete policy recommendations that the current state of the art is missing. Initial results of dissemination activities of the project are encouraging. The consortium organized two academic conferences, in London in February 2011 and in Beijing in October 2011. In addition, a total of seven dissemination events were held in six EU countries to communicate the results of the project to academics, policy-­makers, the media and other interested parties. For example, participants from the EU Commission expressed keen interest in the project’s conclusions on the need for stronger cultural and education ties. A questioner pointed out the essential asymmetry of Chinese people knowing much more about Europe than Europeans know about China, and the related issue of there being far fewer Europeans studying Chinese and learning about China than there are Chinese people studying Europe or travelling to Europe to study. It was felt that the project produced very useful snapshots of views of the EU at particular points in time, but that it would be useful to study how perceptions were changing. It would therefore be necessary to repeat the survey after a certain interval, say five years, to be able to analyse how perceptions have changed over a period, in order to better understand the dynamics of the EU– China relationship. Our two institutions are interested in looking for opportunities to continue this kind of important academic and policy study undertakings, and hope other

xx   Foreword members of the consortium and, more generally, other Chinese and European institutions will join us. The experience of effective and fruitful cooperation for this project gives us confidence in the feasibility of cross-­country joint efforts at improving the mutual understanding between China and the EU. On behalf of the Board of the Consortium, we appreciate the good teamwork of the Editorial Committee led by Professor Lisheng Dong in producing the manuscript of the book. Excellent assistance provided by Mr Lüjun Zhou, PhD candidate at Peking University, is acknowledged. We would like also to thank Professor Yongnian Zheng, who supported Professor Dong’s initiative to apply for this project in late 2008 and agreed to include this book in the China Series published by the Routledge under his editorship. Prof. Shujie Yao Dean of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham Prof. Xiaoyong Huang President of the Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 21 January 2013

Part I

Introduction

1 Introduction Henk Dekker and Zhengxu Wang

This book gives the reader insight into how Chinese citizens and officials think about the European Union. The insights that we present in this book are the results of a research project that we – a group of researchers from six academic institutions in China and Europe – have conducted in China.1 This chapter informs about the why, how and what of our research: the main motivations for our study, the applied methods of data collection, and the main research questions. At the end we give a short overview of the various chapters in this book.

Motivations The starting point for our research project was great curiosity. We asked ourselves: what do Chinese citizens know, think and feel about the EU and how much do they differ in their knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards the EU? Besides this factual curiosity, we were interested in more theoretical issues: How can we explain differences in knowledge, perceptions and attitudes regarding the EU among Chinese, and which theories previously developed by Western scholars to explain orientations towards foreign countries and international organizations have empirical evidence in China and which explanations are nearer ‘the truth’ than others? Theoretically, we distinguish three processes by which individuals learn, and develop their own cognitive and affective orientations: processing their own experiences, processing factual information and emotional messages from mass media and relevant others, and their own thinking. The direct contact theory represents the first process. Socialization theory is the representative of the second process. The third process is inference represented by theories that focus on cognitive explanations such as knowledge, image, and conflict perception theories, and theories focusing on affective explanations, such as social identity theory. Besides this scientific relevance, we expected that studying Chinese views on the EU could also have an important societal relevance, especially for EU policy-­makers. China is the world’s second largest economy after the United States, and Europe’s biggest trade partner after the United States. As China grows in global power and influence, it might be critically important for the EU to forge a close and cooperative relationship with China. Policy papers say that

4   H. Dekker and Zhengxu Wang China and the EU are committed to a comprehensive strategic partnership, but reading newspapers is enough to know that EU–China ties have not always been smooth; Brussels and Beijing have often disagreed over, for example, China’s human rights record. The relationship seems also very complex in practice. There are signs that Europeans often find China hard to understand. We thought that it could be important for Europeans to get to know more about how Chinese officials and people regard the EU. A better understanding of the opportunities and challenges in China may enable the EU institutions and nation-­states to develop an appropriate response to the rise of China as an economic and political giant. A better understanding could also enhance the ability of the EU and European institutions in the various economic, political, cultural and educational sectors to take the necessary steps towards developing more effective relations with China. The European Commission found this study important enough to include it in its Seventh Framework Programme under the title ‘Disaggregating Chinese Perceptions of the EU and the Implications for the EU’s China Policy’, and to support the study financially.

Methodology In order to generate insight into how different groups of Chinese elites and citizens view the EU and how their perceptions of and attitudes towards the EU are formed, we employed a mixed range of research methods, including focus group discussions, surveys, interviews and content analyses. We ran six focus group discussions to identify critical issues and important questions in Chinese perceptions of the EU. A focus group discussion was conducted in each of the six Chinese cities selected for surveying the general public’s perception of the EU. We involved a total of about 60 Chinese citizens in these discussions. Each focus group discussion lasted about an hour to an hour and a half. A ‘Protocol for Focus Group Discussions’ was first developed, which gave detailed guidance to team members on how to run a focus group discussion. The public survey questionnaire was designed collectively by the research team. All English-­language items used in our study were translated into Chinese by a local bilingual translator, and a native English speaker with good Chinese proficiency was then asked to back-­translate these items. Back-­translation was compared with the original English version, and some minor modifications were made to produce the final Chinese version. A pilot test of the questionnaire was conducted in early 2010. After the pilot test, we made a few amendments to the questionnaire before it was finalized for the survey proper. The final questionnaire included close to 130 questions. They covered the respondent’s attitude towards the EU, knowledge about the EU, perceptions of the EU, interest and trust in the EU, and attitude towards EU policies and European ideas and practices, as well as the respondent’s attitude towards his or her own country and people (China and the Chinese), media use (from what sources the respondent receive information about the EU, for example), social and cultural values, and

Introduction   5 the respondent’s personal background. The purpose of including questions about the respondent him- or herself was that they could help us to explain how perceptions and attitudes towards the EU vary among different groups of Chinese. The survey was conducted between June and August in 2010, and sampled more than 3,000 respondents among the registered residents of six Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Chengdu and Nanning. The choice of cities was intended to include cities of different sizes (from megacities to small provincial capitals), different geographical locations (coastal and inland, northern and southern) and different levels of economic development (from the highly developed to the relatively underdeveloped). We sampled 500 respondents in each city using a multi-­stage probability proportional to size sampling procedure. Respondents were required to be between 18 and 70 years old and to have lived in the city for at least half a year. In each of the six cities, we first employed a stratified procedure or simple random procedure to select three or four Districts (qu). Within all the 21 selected city districts, four or three ‘streets’ (jiedao, an administrative unit in the Chinese governing system) were randomly selected in each district, resulting in 72 ‘streets’. In each of the selected ‘streets’, we randomly selected two ‘communities’, or neighbourhood committees (juweihui, the lowest level in the Chinese governing system). Hence, a total of 144 neighbourhood committees were randomly selected. At the community level, we obtained a list of all the households, then used a systematic sampling procedure to select the households for our study. After each household had been identified, we interviewed the person in the household whose birthday was closest to 1 June. Taking Beijing as an example, a total of 24 neighbourhood committees were selected from eight districts, resulting in 504 valid questionnaires. At each stage (district, street, neighbourhood) of the sampling process, the random procedure was executed according to the population sizes of the units in the sampling frame. The fieldwork team in each sampled city was led by either one or two researchers from either the People’s University of China or the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who had received a two-­day training session on fieldwork techniques in advance. They were supported by 10–15 locally recruited research assistants, usually students of a local university, who received a one-­day training briefing before they started to interview the respondents. As a measure of quality control, an observer was randomly selected among the assistants and was independently hired by University of Nottingham to join one interview team every day. In addition, the leading researchers of each city reviewed the completed questionnaires and interview records, which were collected and further reviewed by the researchers from both institutes in Beijing. The total sample size is 3,019, whereby each separately drawn city sample included about 500 respondents. On average, the response rate was 81 per cent (Beijing 76 per cent, Shanghai 78 per cent, Guangzhou 81 per cent, Xi’an 84 per cent, Chengdu 85 per cent and Nanning 84 per cent). Surveys of members of five elite groups were conducted in order to measure more specific views on the EU and EU policies by the Chinese people. Using

6   H. Dekker and Zhengxu Wang

Beijing

Xi’an, Shaanxi Chengdu, Sichuan Shanghai

Nanning, Guangxi Guangzhou, Guangdong

Figure 1.1  Map of China.

snowballing and purposive sampling strategies, we successfully surveyed more than 200 government officials, 200 business leaders, 100 scholars and researchers, 100 reporting and editorial staff in the mass media, and 100 leaders and activists in NGOs. The questionnaires of these elite surveys consisted of three main parts. The first part included a number of questions that were also asked in the public survey. The second part included a set of questions that were common among all the surveys of the elite groups. The third included a set of questions that were specific to the elite group that was being surveyed. In this way, we were able to compare responses to a number of identical questions (those in the first part) between the elite respondents with the general public. We were also able to compare responses to a number of identical questions (those in the second part) between all elite groups. We were also able to understand respondents to a number of questions specially related to their profession (those in the third part). To better understand elite attitudes, face-­to-face interviews were conducted with 20 government officials, 20 business leaders, and ten scholars and researchers. In total, 50 in-­depth interviews were conducted. We were able to interview officials working in government ministries as well as provincial and municipal governments, scholars and researchers at institutes and centres of European Studies in China’s academies, universities and other academic/research institutions, and company directors and managers who have business relations with European partners.

Introduction   7 Our project also included an analysis of school textbooks in China to understand how the EU and Europe are taught to Chinese youth. Two scholars in the team collected school textbooks for World History classes and examined how the EU and Europe are presented to Chinese schoolchildren.

Key questions What do Chinese people know about the EU, what are their perceptions of the EU and Europe, what are their attitudes towards the EU in comparison with other major powers in the world such as the United States, Russia and Japan, what are their perceptions of the EU’s role in the world, and how do the Chinese feel about current and future EU–China relations? Li Zhang and Ying Yu present in Chapter 2 an overview of the findings and provide a comprehensive picture of the views of Chinese citizens on the EU. The chapter also examines the specific perceptions of the five elite groups and explores how the nature of their status influences their views of the EU. How can we explain difference in attitudes towards the EU among Chinese citizens? That is the key question posed in Chapter 3. Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll test a predictive model that is based on intergroup contact, social identity, integrated threat and socialization theories. Do Chinese with more knowledge of the EU have a more positive attitude towards Europeans? Zhengxu Wang and Bogdan Popescu answer this question in Chapter 4. Their hypothesis is that more knowledge contributes to a positive perception. What are the predictors of Chinese citizens’ attitude towards European culture and what are the effects of this attitude on other views concerning the EU? Christian Welzel, Stefanie Reher and Timo Graf answer this question in Chapter 5. The set of possible predictors included intergroup contact, knowledge about the EU, perceived value distance between China and the EU, perceived peacefulness and trustworthiness of Europeans, and patriotism. Attitudes towards European culture are expected to have significant effects on Chinese evaluations of China–EU relations, the EU’s role in the world and the EU’s relative performance vis-­à-vis China in various domains. How can we explain difference in trust in Europeans among Chinese citizens and what are the effects of trust or the lack thereof on other views about the EU? Jan Delhey and Timo Graf answer this question in Chapter 6. The set of possible predictors includes generalized social trust, intergroup contact, knowledge about the EU, images of the EU, perceived value distance between China and the EU, and patriotism. Regarding the effects, it is assumed that Chinese citizens, like citizens elsewhere in the world, are ‘cognitive misers’ who utilize the image of Europeans as trustworthy or untrustworthy people as a cognitive heuristic to evaluate the EU’s role in the world in general and China–EU relations in particular. What are popular Chinese attitudes regarding international affairs and foreign policy? This question is answered by Philip Everts in Chapter 7. He also compares the findings of our research with findings from previous public opinion polls.

8   H. Dekker and Zhengxu Wang What do Chinese elites think about controversial issues that affect the EU’s China policy, how can we explain differences in their views, and how can we explain differences in views between elites and the general public? Lisheng Dong and Lüjun Zhou answer these questions in Chapter 8. Do elites differ from the general public in their views on the EU, and how can we explain possible differences? Long Sun conducted a systematic comparative analysis of the perceptions between these two groups and presents his findings in Chapter 9. The theoretical explanatory model includes EU travel experience, economic status, and opportunities to obtain information via the Internet. Do the tightly controlled traditional media and the Internet have different effects on how Chinese citizens view the EU? Daniela Stockmann presents her analyses of the general survey and the media experts’ survey data in Chapter 10. The media experts’ survey included more than a hundred copies of a questionnaire completed by editors and journalists specializing in international news reporting. What is taught about the EU in Chinese schools? To answer this question Nicola Spakowski examined school history curricula and analysed current secondary school history textbooks.

Note 1 The consortium members were the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (China), Renmin University (China), the China Policy Institute (CPI) of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), Leiden University (the Netherlands), Jacobs University Bremen (Germany), and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London (United Kingdom).

Part II

Citizens

2 Chinese views of the EU Overview of survey findings Li Zhang and Ying Yu

Introduction The European Union (EU) is China’s largest trading partner. China is one of the EU’s two top markets, the other being the United States. The rapid development of the EU–China relationship since the middle of the 1990s has been regarded as an emerging axis in the world (Shambaugh 2004). The EU and China are strategic partners, but they often misunderstand each other, which sometimes shadows the partnership. With the increasing importance of the EU, China and in their strategic partnership in international politics, scholars and politicians both in China and in Europe have shown a growing interest in learning about how the EU is perceived in China. As one of the action plans listed in the EU’s 2003 policy paper towards China, entitled ‘A Maturing Partnership: Shared Interests and Challenges in EU– China Relations’, the European Commission organised a project team to examine Chinese knowledge of the EU in 2005.1 This marks the first EU perception study in China. The project team conducted 20 focus group meetings in four Chinese cities with 230 participants covering the range of social/economic sectors and regional spread.2 The study found that economic perception of the EU is the main area of recognition, and the social/economic sector is the area where the EU enjoys greatest respect by the Chinese. In terms of political perception, Chinese would automatically make a comparison with the United States, and there was a tendency to recognise the member states instead of the EU itself. Since then, many studies and projects have focused on perceptions of the EU in China (Men 2006; Dai and Zhang 2007; Zhu 2008; Zhang 2011). Men (2006) presented how Chinese scholars understood the EU as a pole in international politics, EU–US relations and EU–China relations by reviewing articles published from 2000 to 2005 in four leading Chinese journals in the fields of international relations and European studies. Zhu (2008) and her research team surveyed Chinese scholars and university students’ perception of the EU as an independent power in the international system in 2005 when EU– China diplomatic relations marked their thirtieth anniversary. Zhang (2011) conducted a longitudinal study on the changing nature of EU representation in the Chinese media, the People’s Daily in particular, from 1989 to 2005. The study

12   Li Zhang and Ying Yu further explored how journalistic practice, China’s national interests and foreign policy interplay in shaping the coverage. Another study on the media coverage of the EU in China was part of an 18-country transnational comparative project entitled ‘The EU through the Eyes of Asia-­Pacific’, supported by the Asia-­Europe Foundation (ASEF ) and National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. The project used an identical research methodology and examined EU-­related stories in one reputable popular news-paper, one business newspaper, one English-­language newspaper and one prime-­time news bulletin on the national television in each country. The news coverage of the EU in three Chinese press and one television news programme was monitored in 2006. Besides the media perception, the ‘EU through the Eyes of Asia-­Pacific’ project also conducted 400 online surveys of public opinion in December 2006 and 32 face-­to-face interviews carried out from April to July 2007 with political, business, media and civil society elites in China. In 2007 and 2008 respectively, a research group from the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted two surveys of Chinese public’s opinion on the EU as one of the world’s key powers, and EU–China bilateral relations. The first study surveyed 3,693 urban citizens in five Chinese cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Xi’an; the second survey collected 2,677 valid questionnaires from nine Chinese provinces and municipalities. The above studies on the EU’s perception in China were conducted at different periods and targeted different groups of correspondents. They adopted various methods, including documentary analysis, questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, media analysis and face-­to-face interviews. However, their findings do not contradict each other. They found that awareness and knowledge of the EU among Chinese are limited, but the EU is generally viewed positively and most Chinese are optimistic about the development of bilateral relations. Moreover, it is economic and political images of the EU that are the most prominent in China. However, the inconsistency and lack of connection among those research projects make it difficult to obtain a clear and constructive picture of how the EU is perceived in China, particularly in terms of a comparative study of views from different groups of Chinese citizens. Drawing from the questionnaire survey datasets from the recently completed EU’s Seventh Framework Programme funded project, entitled ‘Chinese Views of the EU: Disaggregating Chinese Perceptions of the EU and the Implications for the EU’s China Policy’, this chapter is devoted to providing a comprehensive picture of how different segments of Chinese society perceive the EU. However, this chapter only aims to present the overall architecture of the comprehensive understanding of Europe and the EU by the sampled Chinese urban citizens and different elite groups. More regression and correlation studies among various variables in the survey will be analysed by other chapters in this volume. The next section will explain the comparative approach and illustrate the basic demographic information of the survey samples.

Chinese views of the EU   13

Questionnaires and the statistics of the survey samples The public survey for urban citizens in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Chengdu and Nanning consisted of nearly 70 dependent variables, which included knowledge about the EU, attitudes towards Europe and the European Union, the EU in the world, China and the EU, and so on, and over 50 independent variables, such as gender, education, age, city, foreign language competence, international experience, information sources, Chinese identity and nationalism, personal contact, other demographics, and so on. Using the probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling method, 3,019 valid sample surveys were collected in total. Of the respondents, 50.4 per cent were male and 49.6 per cent female. In terms of age group, respondents aged 18–30, 31–40, 41–50, 51–60 and 61–70 accounted for 27.2 per cent, 19.9 per cent, 22.8 per cent, 20.6 per cent and 9.4 per cent respectively.3 In terms of education level, 22.8 per cent of the respondents had been educated to junior secondary level or below, 36.7 per cent had a senior secondary education degree and 40.5 per cent had at least a college-­level degree. According to China’s sixth national census in 2010, nearly 120 million Chinese (8.7 per cent of the total population) are educated to college level or above.4 Since the surveys were conducted in metropolises and provincial capital cities, it is likely that the education levels of the respondents were much higher than the national average. Of the 40.5 per cent of respondents who held higher education degrees, 20.1 per cent had college qualifications, 17.8 per cent university qualifications and 2.6 per cent postgraduate or above. In order to allow a comparison study of Chinese perceptions of the EU between the general public (urban citizens in this research) and Chinese elites, as well as among different groups of Chinese elites, the questionnaires for the survey of elites consisted of three parts. The first part adopted selected questions from the public survey, the second part included questions on some specific aspects of the EU and issues in EU–China relations, and the third part was composed of the professional questions to each elite group. Using the snowballing method, we collected 782 valid samples from five Chinese elite groups in total in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin and others. Of these, 222 were from government officials, 203 from entrepreneurs, 100 from scholars, 123 from media workers and 134 from social organisation activists. Male respondents in the elite survey (56.7 per cent) slightly outnumber female respondents (43.3 per cent). Also, the elite respondents were younger on average than the respondents belonging to the general public. Elite respondents in the age groups 20–30, 31–40, 41–50, 51–50 and 61–70 make up 52.9 per cent, 31.0 per cent, 11.8 per cent, 4.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent of the total respectively. Likewise, the education level of the elite respondents is very much higher than that of the public survey respondents. Elite respondents with senior secondary qualification or below occupy make up only 3.7 per cent of the total; those who hold bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees and doctoral degrees account for 43.3 per cent, 41.2 per cent and 11.8 per cent respectively.

14   Li Zhang and Ying Yu The following sections will be devoted to examining the salient concepts of perceptions of Europe in China, Chinese people’s knowledge level concerning the EU, Chinese affect towards European political, economic, social and cultural elements, Chinese feelings (affect) towards the EU in comparison with other major powers in the world, such as the United States, Russia and Japan, assessment of the EU’s role in the world, and how the Chinese visualise current and future bilateral relations between the EU and China.

Salient concepts of Europe The salient concepts of Europe focus on the countries, cities, historical figures and the interesting items of Europe in the mind of Chinese. The urban citizen respondents were asked which countries first came to their mind when they thought about Europe. The survey showed that France (2,064 votes) was the first country spring to Chinese mind, followed by the United Kingdom (2,031 votes), Germany (1,601 votes) and Italy (712 votes). Russia (328 votes) came sixth after ‘other’ (333 votes) and before Spain (309 votes). The cities that came to mind were Paris (2,194 votes), London (1,958), Berlin (918 votes) and Rome (558 votes) in the same order. Moscow (390 votes) was ranked as number 5 this time, before ‘other’ (323) and followed by Vienna (247 votes). When the respondents thought about Europe, the historical figures that first came to Chinese minds were Napoleon Bonaparte (1,266 votes) and Adolf Hitler (1,226 votes), both of whom were related to wars. Lenin (932 votes) was the third and Karl Marx (892 votes) the fourth, both of whom were related to revolutions. Leonardo da Vinci (535 votes) in relation to the arts was ranked after the ‘other’ figures (799 votes). From a given list of ten items plus one open choice, the top ten things that Chinese people are interested in about Europe are soccer, cars, fashion, perfume, historical sites, music, movies, nature, technology and beer in that order. A further simple correlation examination on the gender of the correspondents and the first choice of their interested element tells that those choices are strongly gender oriented. For instance, 751 men, in contrast to 233 women, chose soccer as their first choice; 171 men, in contrast to 91 women, made their first choice cars; and ten men, in contrast to one woman, chose beer as their greatest interest in relation to Europe; while 564 women, in contrast to 181 men, chose perfume, and 184 women, in contrast to 45 men, were most interested in European fashion. Moreover, the aspects that the Chinese public are particularly interested in Europe are its economics (30.8 per cent), arts and culture (22.3 per cent), travel (16.9 per cent), sports (14.7 per cent), politics (9.4 per cent) and fashion (5.8 per cent), in that order.

Knowledge of the EU Chinese people’s knowledge of the EU was examined both subjectively and objectively. Survey respondents were asked to estimate their own knowledge

Chinese views of the EU   15 level of the EU and were also asked some factual-­related questions to examine their real EU knowledge. Of all public respondents, only 8.3 per cent said that they had never heard about the EU. The rest were further asked to use a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means ‘know nothing at all’ and 10 means ‘know a great deal’, to self-­estimate the extent to which they felt they knew about Europe and the EU. The mean of respondents’ feeling that they knew about Europe was 4.25, and their feeling that they knew about the EU was slightly lower, with a mean of 4.00. The Chinese elites felt that they knew more about the EU than the general public in the six surveyed cities. The mean of the self-­estimation of their EU knowledge was 4.68. Their real level of knowledge about the EU was also tested. Both the public survey and the elite survey asked, ‘Currently, how many member states does the EU have?’ Only 9.3 per cent of those in the public survey got the answer (27 member states) right, while 50.9 per cent of the elite respondents gave the right answer. When asked the location of the EU headquarters, 28.2 per cent of public respondents answered ‘Brussels’, while 77.5 per cent of elite respondents chose this answer. To further examine Chinese knowledge concerning the EU, two specific questions were asked. Both the public and the elite surveys asked whether Turkey, Switzerland, Poland, Russia and Norway are part of the EU, and whether France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands use the euro or not. Our findings show that, on average, public respondents in the six surveyed cities got 2.64 answers correct out of the nine questions, which means the correct answer rate is 29.3 per cent. In contrast, on average elite respondents got 6.70 answers correct out of the 9, a correct answer rate of 74.5 per cent. Answers to these questions clearly demonstrated that the Chinese elites possess some knowledge of the EU, and indeed their EU knowledge level is much higher than that of the general urban citizens, in accordance with their self-­estimations.

Attitudes towards Europe In general, Chinese attitudes towards various European elements are positive. Those elements include cultural factors, such as European culture and fashion; entertainment factors, such as European music and movies; and political-­ economic factors, such as advances made by European science and technology, ideas about democracy, and the European way of doing business. In terms of cultural factors, 87.5 per cent of public respondents said that ‘it is good that European cultures are spreading here’; 4.1 per cent felt the opposite and 8.4 per cent chose ‘don’t know’ (DK). Of those in the public survey, 83.3 per cent answered that it was good that European fashion is spreading to China; 6.7 per cent felt the opposite and there were 9.9 per cent ‘don’t knows’. Chinese elites had a markedly different view regarding the spreading of European cultures in China: 66.4 per cent held a positive view, while 31.4 per cent answered that ‘it is not easy to say’ and only 2.2 per cent said that ‘it is bad that European cultures are spreading here’. Chinese attitudes towards European entertainment factors were broadly similar: 70.0 per cent of public respondents said that they

16   Li Zhang and Ying Yu like European music, with 18.4 per cent disliking it and 11.6 per cent answering ‘DK’; and 70.2 per cent stated that they like European movies, with 18.6 per cent disliking them and 11.2 answering ‘DK’. In terms of political and economic factors, 56.2 per cent of the public respondents said they liked European ideas about democracy, 12.3 per cent disliked them, 22.3 per cent said that ‘it is not easy to say’ and there were 9.2 per cent ‘don’t knows’. In contrast, 66.4 per cent of elite respondents liked European ideas about democracy, only 5.8 per cent disliked them and 28.7 per cent chose ‘it is not easy to say’. European ways of doing business seemed to get the least positive view. Less than half (47.8 per cent) of public respondents stated that they liked European ways of doing business, 8.1 per cent disliked them, 26.1 per cent chose ‘not easy to say’, and 18.0 per cent chose ‘DK’. Similarly, only 45.5 per cent of the elites liked European ways of doing business, 6.5 per cent disliked them, and a high proportion of respondents (48.1 per cent) said that it was hard to say, which indicates that European ways of doing business sometimes lead to positive results and sometimes to negative results in the EU–China business practice. But the majority of Chinese public respondents (81.7 per cent) stated that they admired Europe for its scientific and technological advances, with 12.1 per cent holding a negative attitude and 6.2 per cent saying ‘DK’.

Stereotypes and affects towards the EU In comparison to other big powers in the world, such as the United States, Japan and Russia, what are Chinese affects towards the EU? The research asked the public and the elite respondents whether they had a very unfavourable, somewhat unfavourable, somewhat favourable or very favourable impression of the United States, the EU, Japan and Russia. The findings show that Chinese like the EU the most. For the Chinese public, the EU and Russia received a higher rate than the United States and Japan, in that order. However, the Chinese elite ranked the United States as the second most favoured country and Japan still the least favoured. Combining those who chose the options of ‘very favourable’ and ‘somewhat favourable’, 75.9 per cent of the public respondents indicated that they had a favourable impression of the EU, closely followed by 74.8 per cent for Russia, then 60.6 per cent for the United States and 38.9 per cent for Japan (see Figure 2.1). But the elite survey sees a higher and leading percentage (83.0 per cent) of respondents favourable towards the EU. Moreover, 66.9 per cent of the Chinese elite have a favourable impression of the United States, followed by 60.4 per cent favourable towards Russia and 35.4 per cent towards Japan (see Figure 2.2). The above orders were slightly changed when respondents were asked about their impression regarding people in those locations. The Chinese still most favour the EU’s citizens: 79.8 per cent of the public respondents liked EU citizens, which is closely followed by 76.0 per cent Russian and 72.9 per cent Americans. But over half of public respondents (55.9 per cent) had an unfavourable impression towards the Japanese (see Figure 2.3). The elite survey tells us

80 70

Unfavourable Favourable

75.9

60.6

60

74.8 58.1

50 40

38.9

36.9

30 19.8

20

12.5

10 0

US

EU

Japan

Russia

Figure 2.1  Affects of the Chinese public towards major world powers (%).

90 80

Unfavourable Favourable

83.0

66.9

70

62.8

60

60.4

50 40 30 20

35.5

13.1

10 0

35.4

31.8

US

EU

Japan

Russia

Figure 2.2  Affects of members of Chinese elites towards major world powers (%).

90 80 70

Unfavourable Favourable 72.9

79.8

60

55.9

50

40.0

40 30 20

22.5

16.5 7.3

10 0

76.0

Americans

EU citizens

Japanese

Russians

Figure 2.3  Affects of the Chinese public towards the people of major world powers (%).

18   Li Zhang and Ying Yu 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Unfavourable Favourable 78.6

86.3

60.1

58.6 38.3

31.1

18.4 8.0 Americans

EU citizens

Japanese

Russians

Figure 2.4 Affects of members of Chinese elites towards the people of major world powers (%).

that 86.3 per cent of the elite had favourable attitudes towards EU citizens, with the Americans coming second (78.6 per cent) and the Russians (60.1 per cent) third. In a finding similar to that for the public impression, the survey recorded that 58.6 per cent of the Chinese elite dislike the Japanese (see Figure 2.4). In terms of shared values, which of those countries would Chinese say that China is closest to or most distant from? The data tell us that most respondents from the public survey believe that China is distant in its values from the United States, the EU and Japan. Of these, the United States and China are seen as being most distant from each other, followed by the EU and Japan. Russia, by contrast, is viewed as a country that has more shared values with China (see Figure 2.5). Comparing various economic and social domains in the EU area and in China, such as the economy, employment, environment, social welfare, family relations and the quality of life, how would the Chinese assess the situation? Would they 80

75.7

Close to each other Distant from each other DK 55.7

70 60

54.7

52.8

50 40

39.7

35.3

33.8

30 18.5

20

10.0

10 0

EU

5.8 US

7.5 Japan

10.5 Russia

Figure 2.5  Shared values between China and the major world powers (%).

Chinese views of the EU   19 say the situations of those domains in the EU area are better or worse than those in China? Our public survey shows that except for the aspect of family relations, Chinese urban citizens believe that situations of all the other aspects are superior in the EU area. For instance, 82.0 per cent hold the view that social welfare in the EU area is better than that in China, and 79.8 per cent believe that the environment in the EU is better; 79.6 per cent think that EU citizens enjoy a higher quality of life than the Chinese; and 71.3 per cent regard the European economy as more developed than China’s. In terms of the employment situation, only slightly over half of the respondents (52.9 per cent) thought that the situation in the EU area was better. However, a great number of Chinese hold the opinion that family relations in the EU are not as close as those in Chinese families, with 27.2 per cent saying the situation in the EU is better than in China, 29.9 per cent saying that it is worse and 19.6 per cent saying that the situations in the two locations are roughly the same (see Figure 2.6).

The EU in the world To what extent do the Chinese think the EU, as one of the big powers in the world, has been a positive or negative factor in various international issues? The project surveyed both the Chinese urban public and the elite as regards their attitude towards the EU’s role in world peace, the international economy, environmental protection, scientific progress, fighting poverty in the world and fighting international terrorism. The findings show that the Chinese view the EU quite positively in relation to those international issues, but fewer of the Chinese elite than the urban public thought that the EU plays a positive role in those areas; rather, a large 90 80 70 60 50

79.8

71.3

82.0

79.6

52.9

40 27.2

30 20 10 0

16.7 13.0 15.0 9.9 5.8 15.4 5.2 5.8 9.2 Economy Employment Environment

11.1 3.2 3.7 Social welfare

29.9 19.6 23.3

Family relations

Better than in China Worse than in China Roughly the same DK

Figure 2.6  Comparison of the situations in the EU area and in China (%).

7.4 9.1 3.8 Quality of life

20   Li Zhang and Ying Yu number of them gave a quite cautious answer and held the opinion that the EU may play a positive or negative role in those areas, depending on the circumstances. The figures show that scientific progress and environmental protection are the areas for which the Chinese are most positive on the EU’s role. Of the public respondents, 92.4 per cent and 89.0 per cent respectively regarded the EU’s roles in the two areas as positive. For the elite respondents, the corresponding figures were 79.0 per cent and 79.5 per cent. The EU’s role in fighting poverty in the world and fighting international terrorism are the areas that received the least positive judgements but the most ‘it depends’ answers (see Table 2.1). Our surveys asked the respondents to rank the most influential actors in world affairs when it comes to politics and the economy. The choices include the United States, the EU, Japan, Russia and China. Unsurprisingly, the United States was regarded by both the Chinese urban public and the elite as the most influential actor in the world politics and the world economy. In the public survey concerning the most influential actors in world politics, nearly one-­fifth of respondents (19.9 per cent) named China as their first choice, after the United States (73.1 per cent), with the EU coming third, with 4.1 per cent; as for the second most influential political actor, China came first, with 37.6 per cent, and the EU next, with 25.3 per cent (see Figure 2.7). The ranking of the influential actor in the world economy was the same (see Figure 2.8). Unfortunately, as the world’s biggest single market, the EU’s economic performance was not as influential as EU leaders might have expected. Of the Chinese elite respondents, 95.2 per cent chose the United States as the most influential political actor; only 3.0 per cent chose China and 1.7 per cent chose the EU. But 57.3 per cent of Chinese elite chose the EU as the second most influential actor in world politics, and 20.9 per cent chose China (see Figure 2.9). These orders were the same when the elite respondents were asked to rank the most and second most influential actors in the world economy (see Figure 2.10).

China and the EU Of the Chinese public respondents, 39.4 per cent believed that China and the EU have enough common interests to be able to cooperate on international problems, Table 2.1  Attitudes towards the EU’s role regarding international issues (%) Positive

Peace in the world The international economy Protection of the environment Scientific progress Fighting poverty in the world Fighting international terrorism

Negative

It depends

Public

Elite

Public

Elite

Public

Elite

77.5 83.4 89.0 92.4 72.4 73.5

55.9 57.8 79.5 79.0 51.6 40.4

9.2 6.4 3.9 2.0 12.3 12.1

4.8 6.7 2.7 3.4 7.5 8.8

13.3 10.2 7.1 5.6 15.3 14.4

39.4 35.5 17.8 17.6 40.9 50.7

80

US EU Japan Russia China

73.1

70 60 50 37.6

40 30

19.9

20 10

4.1

0.7

0

25.3 17.2

14.7 5.2

2.3

2nd

1st

Figure 2.7  Chinese public opinion on the most influential political actor in the world (%).

80

74.2

US EU Japan Russia China

70 60 50 40

34.9

29.6

30 16.2

20 10

6.6

0

2.0

15.0

14.8 5.8

0.9

1st

2nd

Figure 2.8  Chinese public opinion on the most influential economic actor in the world (%).

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

95.2

US EU Japan Russia China

57.3

16.5 1.7 0.1 0.0 3.0 1st

3.3

20.9

2.1 2nd

Figure 2.9  Chinese elite opinion on the most influential political actor in the world (%).

22   Li Zhang and Ying Yu 100

94.9

US EU Japan Russia China

90 80 70 59.6

60 50 40 30

22.9

20 10 0

12.3 1.9 0.5 0.1 2.5 1st

3.0

2.2 2nd

Figure 2.10  Chinese elite opinion on the most influential economic actor in the world (%).

while 12.2 per cent thought the opposite: that China and the EU have such different interests that cooperating on international problems is impossible. But 35.2 per cent held the view that even though the two powers do not have many common interests, they can still work together. The majority of public respondents thought that China and the EU should cooperate more closely, and only 6.3 per cent opposed closer cooperation. The rest chose ‘DK’. The survey further asked the respondents to assess current China­–EU relations. On a seven-­point scale from 1, ‘very good’, to 7, ‘very bad’, the biggest proportion of the Chinese public (42.6 per cent) believed that bilateral relations are good, with 5.9 per cent believing them to be very good, 12.4 per cent quite good and 24.3 per cent somewhat good; 36.7 per cent held the neutral opinion and 14.7 per cent a negative one. The Chinese elite too were asked to evaluate current China–EU relations. Unfortunately, they were not given the seven-­point scale as used in the public survey, but instead the choices of very good, fairly good, not very good, not good at all and DK. The elite respondents who chose these options account for 0.6 per cent, 57.8 per cent, 27.8 per cent, 0.3 per cent and 13.5 per cent, respectively. From these statistics, we can see that the Chinese elites are more negative than the public in evaluating the current relationship between China and the EU. Since those responding to the elite survey were not given the choice of ‘neutral’, it is hard to say whether the Chinese elites were more positive than the public in viewing current bilateral relations. In order to better understand the above evaluation, the respondents were asked the extent to which they think the EU takes account of the interests of China in making international policy decisions. The findings show that 55.8 per cent of elite Chinese, versus 33.5 per cent of the Chinese public, do not think that the EU takes into account the interests of China when making international

Chinese views of the EU   23 policy decisions. This may partly explain why the Chinese elite tend to hold a more negative view of current China–EU relations than the public: 51.0 per cent of the public chose ‘a fair amount’ and 6.3 per cent ‘a great deal’; in contrast, 36.4 per cent of the elite chose ‘a fair amount’ and 1.8 per cent ‘a great deal’ (see Figure 2.11). In comparison to China’s foreign relations with the United States, Japan and Russia, how friendly do the Chinese see China–EU relations as being? Our surveys found that using a 1–10 scale with 1 meaning ‘very unfriendly’ and 10 meaning ‘very friendly’, both the Chinese public and the elite believe that China–Russia relations are most friendly, with China–EU relations coming second and China–US relations third. China–Japan relations were viewed as unfriendly (see Figure 2.12). Both the public and the elite were asked about their views on the prospects for the China–EU relationship. In general, the Chinese held an optimistic view of the development trajectory: 16.0 per cent of the public were very optimistic and 46.7 per cent were cautiously optimistic, while 7.2 per cent of the elite were very optimistic and 66.8 per cent cautiously optimistic. Those who held the pessimistic opinion were quite marginal (see Figure 2.13). Furthermore, the prospects for the relationship were mostly described by Chinese in terms of China and the EU as partners and stakeholders. Our findings show that 7.8 per cent of the public described the relations as those of friends, 43.8 per cent partners, 37.1 per cent stakeholders, 6.3 per cent rivals and 0.3 per cent enemies, while the views from the elite are 1.7 per cent friends, 28.9 per cent partners, 63.8 per cent stakeholders, 3.8 per cent rivals and 0.3 per cent enemies (see Figure 2.14).

60 51.0

50 40

Public Elites

49.9

36.4 28.3

30 20 10 0

6.3

5.2 5.9

1.8 A great deal

A fair amount Not too much

Not at all

9.1

5.9

DK

Figure 2.11 Chinese public and elite views on the extent to which the EU takes account of the interests of China in making important international decisions (%).

7 6

5.26

Mean

5

6.47 6.33

5.88 5.69 5.08

4.74

Public Elites

4.43

4 3 2 1 0 How friendly is How friendly is How friendly is How friendly is China–EU China–Japan China–Russia China–USA relationship? relationship? relationship? relationship?

Figure 2.12 Evaluation, on a ten-point scale, of the friendliness of China’s foreign relations with the United States, the EU, Japan and Russia.

80

Public Elites

66.8

70 60

46.7

50 40

30.2

30 20 10 0

16.0

23.3

7.2

1.90.9

0.2 0.3 Very Cautiously Neutral Fairly Very optimistic optimistic pessimistic pessimistic

5.0 1.5 DK

Figure 2.13  Chinese views on the prospects for the China–EU relationship (%).

70

63.8

60 50

43.8

40

Public Elites

37.1

28.9

30

4.2

D

0.0

K

0.3 1.6

th

ie s em En

R

ak eh ol

de r

s

er s

0.3 0.3

St

Fr ie nd

s

0

iva ls

6.3 3.8

1.7

O

7.8

Pa rtn

10

er s

20

Figure 2.14  Chinese descriptions of the prospects for China–EU relations (%).

Chinese views of the EU   25

Information sources concerning EU countries Our surveys tell us that television, newspapers and the Internet are the three major sources of information for Chinese on Europe and the EU. Other sources include family and relatives, teachers and schoolbooks, other books, the radio, as well as work and colleagues (see Table 2.2). When the respondents were asked to choose from a 1–10 scale with 1 meaning ‘very negative’ and 10 ‘very positive’ to evaluate the information that they received from these sources, our findings show that the mean from the public survey is 6.24, while the mean from the elite survey is 5.96. This tells us that Europe and the EU were generally represented positively in China.

Elite perceptions of the EU’s China policy In the elite survey, the common questions on the five elite groups covered perceptions of the EU’s China policy, mutual understanding between the EU and China, areas for cooperation, as well as different issue areas such as global climate change, the exchange rate of the yuan, human rights and other controversial issues. (The survey of entrepreneurs utilised a slightly different set of questions that are more applicable to the trade and business relations between the EU and China.) The question on elite groups’ general satisfaction rate with the EU’s China policy reveals that about half of the elite are dissatisfied or not very satisfied with the EU’s China policy. Scholars are the most satisfied with the EU’s China policy, followed by officials, media workers and NGO workers. Only 17.1 per cent of NGO workers feel fairly satisfied; the dissatisfaction rate for them is the highest, and the DK rate for them is also as high as 29.5 per cent (see Figure 2.15).

60

Scholars Officials NGO workers Media workers

47.4 48.1

50 43.3 40

46.8

41.7

33.9 33.3

29.5

30

24.2

20

17.1

16.1

10 0

0

0.9

1.0 2.3

00

Very satisfied

Fairly satisfied

Not very satisfied

8.2

5.4 0.8

Not satisfied at all

Figure 2.15  Elite satisfaction with the EU’s China policy (%).

DK

4

1 2 3

Television (71.7) Internet (8.3) Family and relatives (6.2) Newspaper (6.2)

Teachers and schoolbooks (4.3)

Television (51.2) Internet (25.6) Newspaper (7.7) Radio (6.0)

Newspaper (54.3) Internet (16.5) Television (15.5)

Public

Public

Elites

Second choice (%)

First choice (%)

Table 2.2  Chinese information sources on Europe and the EU

Books (5.7)

Newspaper (34.7) Internet (29.7) Television (15.0)

Elites

Books (11.7)

Internet (33.5) Radio (17.3) Newspaper (12.3)

Public

Third choice (%)

Work and colleagues (12.6)

Internet (35.1) Newspaper (17.4) Books (13.4)

Elites

Chinese views of the EU   27

Mutual understanding between the EU and China There were two sets of questions in the elite survey to test the elite perception of mutual understanding between the EU and China. The first set contains four questions focusing on how well members of the public in EU countries understand China in general and its society, political institutions and culture in particular. The second set asks the same questions on Chinese’s understanding about the EU. After comparing in pairs, although scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers show different rates of agreement or disagreement with different statements, generally the four elite groups think that both the EU public and the Chinese public have only limited understanding about each other. Looking at the four elite groups as a whole, while ignoring the DK rate, Figure 2.16 gives us a clearer picture of how Chinese elites view the mutual understanding between the EU and Chinese public in different aspects: 92.0 per cent, 94.9 per cent and 90.1 per cent of the four elite groups agree that ‘The EU public has limited understanding about China/Chinese society/Chinese political institutions’ respectively; while slightly lower rates – 83.6 per cent, 84.9 per cent and 84.0 per cent – of the elite believe that ‘the Chinese public has limited understanding about Europe/European society/EU political institutions’, in that order. In terms of culture, 56.9 per cent agree that ‘the EU public appreciates Chinese culture’, but more respondents – as many as 76.5 per cent – believe that ‘the Chinese public appreciates European culture’ (see Figure 2.16). Therefore, although understanding is limited on both sides, the Chinese elite nevertheless believe the Chinese have a better understanding about the EU and appreciation of its culture. For entrepreneurs, a similar result is found in terms of the public’s and enterprises’ understanding about China’s and European economic and trade policy. Much as with the other four elite groups, 89.4 per cent of Chinese entrepreneurs agree strongly or somewhat that ‘the EU public has limited understanding about China’s economic and trade policy’; while 78.2 per cent think ‘Chinese enterprises and public have limited understanding about European economic and trade policy’.

Areas for cooperation The elite groups of scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers were asked to identify areas for strengthening cooperation between China and the EU in terms of their first and second choices among a number of options. As first choice, ‘Economy and trade’ is the area for cooperation at the top of the list for the four elite groups, both individually and as a whole. After weighting of the first and second choices, Table 2.3 shows the ranking of choices and reveals more information. For all four groups, ‘Economy and trade’ is followed by ‘Technology, education, literature and arts’, ‘Climate and environment’, ‘Politics and diplomacy’, ‘Energy’, ‘Development issues of Third World countries like those in Africa’ and ‘Peacekeeping and fighting against terrorists’ in total

28   Li Zhang and Ying Yu 100 90

8.0

16.4

5.1

15.1

9.9

16.0

80

23.5

Disagree Agree

43.1

70 60 50 40

92.0

83.6

94.9

84.9

90.1

84.0

30

76.5 56.9

20

The Chinese public appreciates EU culture

The EU public appreciates Chinese culture

The Chinese public has limited understanding about EU political institutions

The EU public has limited understanding about Chinese political institutions

The Chinese public has limited understanding about European society

The EU public has limited understanding about Chinese society

The Chinese has limited understanding about Europe

0

The EU public has limited understanding about China

10

Figure 2.16  Elite groups’ perception of EU–China mutual understanding.

ranking. NGO workers, though, nominated ‘Climate and environment’ as the first cooperative area that needs to be strengthened, and media workers rank ‘Politics and diplomacy’ as the second (see Table 2.3).

The most controversial issues The elite groups of scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers were asked to identify the most controversial issues that affect the EU’s China policy in terms of their first and second choices among a number of options, including ‘Intellectual property rights’, ‘Labour standards’, ‘Environmental issue’, ‘Human rights issue’, ‘Tibet issue’, ‘Institutional difference between China and the EU’, ‘Different stands towards international affairs between China and the EU’ and ‘the EU’s arms embargo towards China’. Table 2.4 shows that ‘Human rights issue’, ‘Tibet issue’ and ‘Institutional difference between China and the EU’ are regarded as the top three controversies by all the groups. However, scholars’ opinion is different from that of other elite groups, their top three being ‘Intellectual property rights’, ‘Human rights issue’ and ‘Environmental issue’. Entrepreneurs were posed a different set of questions to examine their opinion about the controversial issues related to China–EU economic and trade relations in terms of how strongly they agree or disagree with statements about the listed

Scholars 1 4 2 5 3 7 6

Areas for cooperation

Economy and trade Politics and diplomacy Technology, education, literature and arts Energy Climate and environment Peacekeeping and fighting against terrorists Development issues of Third World countries like those in Africa

1 3 2 5 4 6 7

Officials 3 5 2 4 1 7 6

NGO workers

1 2 3 5 4 7 6

1 4 2 5 3 7 6

Media workers All four groups

Table 2.3  Ranking of areas for strengthening cooperation between China and the EU after weighting the first and second choices

Intellectual property rights Labour standards Environmental issue Human rights issue Tibet issue Institutional difference between China and the EU Different stands towards international affairs between China–EU EU’s arms embargo towards China

1 7 3 2 4 7 5 6

Scholars 4 6 5 2 3 1 7 7

Officials 5 8 7 1 2 3 4 6

NGO workers

6 8 4 1 2 3 5 7

4 7 5 1 2 3 6 8

Media workers All four groups

Table 2.4  Ranking of controversial issues that affect the EU’s China policy after weighting the first and second choices

Chinese views of the EU   31 controversial issues. From the business elite’s point of view, 63.5 per cent and more believe all the listed issues will affect China–EU economic and trade relations. The ranking of these controversial issues is topped by ‘the issue of Tibet’, followed by the issues of ‘environmental protection standard’, ‘human rights’, ‘intellectual property rights’, ‘the EU’s arms embargo towards China’ and ‘labour standards’ (see Figure 2.17). Human rights and labour standards Five questions/statements were addressed to the elite groups of scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers in order to investigate their opinion on the controversial issue of human rights in China–EU relations. Figures on individual groups reveal the consistency as well as difference of opinions among elite groups. For example, most media workers disagree that ‘The EU has recognised China’s recent improvement in human rights situation’, while most scholars disagree that ‘The EU has played a good role in improving China’s human rights situation’. More scholars and officials believe that the ‘Human rights issue is China’s internal affair, so the EU should not interfere’ than NGO and media workers. After weighting and counting the DK as missing, Figure 2.18 shows that about two, three or more of the four elite groups as a whole are antagonistic towards the EU’s role or interference in improving China’s human rights situation. But there is no clear consensus on whether ‘The EU should continue in helping improve China’s human rights situation’ or whether ‘The EU’s China policy concentrates more on business and trade while ignor[ing] issues in politics and society’.

72.7

76.5

36.5 23.5

Issue of Tibet

27.3

Issue of human rights

Environmental protection

27.2

Labour standards

30.1

72.8

63.5

Agree Disagree 69.6

30.4

Issue of EU’s arms embargo

69.9

Intellectual property rights

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Figure 2.17 Business elite’s perception of issues that will affect China–EU economic and trade relations (%).

32   Li Zhang and Ying Yu Disagree Agree

65.5

50.7

64.6

The EU should continue in helping improve China’s human rights situation

49.3

The human rights issue is China’s internal affair, so the EU should not interfere

34.5

35.4 The EU has played a good role in improving China’s human rights situation

71.0

43.8

56.2

The EU’s China policy concentrates more on business and trade while ignoring issues in politics and society

29.0

The EU has recognised China’s recent improvement in the human rights situation

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Figure 2.18  Elite groups’ perception of the human rights issue.

Entrepreneurs were asked two questions on labour standards. About 70 per cent of respondents agreed that ‘The issue of labour standards will affect Chinese enterprises’ competitiveness in export’. About half thought that ‘The EU enterprises in China have acted as a good role model in complying with labour standards’, while 34.5 per cent somewhat or strongly disagrees and 15.3 per cent were ‘don’t knows’. Global climate change and environmental protection Seven questions/statements on the issue of global climate change were addressed to all elite groups. Figures on individual groups show that while elite groups tend to agree (or disagree) with certain statements, their opinions diverge on others. For example, more scholars disagree that ‘The EU countries tried to limit industrial development through climate issues’ or ‘China should make more effort in dealing with global warming’. Figure 2.19 illustrates a clearer picture of how the five elite groups as a whole (DK counted as missing) perceive the controversy of the climate change issues in China–EU relations.5 Elite groups show more consensus that ‘The EU countries and other Western industrial countries should take the main responsibility in response to the climate change issues’, ‘The EU has

Chinese views of the EU   33 NOT recognised the efforts that China took in response to the climate change issues’ and ‘Both China and the EU should make more effort in dealing with global warming’. The statements that ‘The EU countries tried to limit industrial development through climate issues’, ‘The green technology from the EU countries is helping China in reducing CO2 emissions’ and ‘The attitudes of the EU countries in providing green technology to China are active’ see more divergence of opinion among Chinese elites. Entrepreneurs were asked three additional questions on the issue of environmental protection standards. Seventy per cent of entrepreneurs agreed that ‘The issue of environmental protection standard will affect Chinese enterprises’ competiveness in export’. 54.2 per cent think ‘The EU enterprises in China have acted as a good role model in complying with environmental protection standards’, while 32 per cent disagreed and 13.8 per cent responded ‘DK’. Nevertheless, the vast majority (84.3 per cent) believed that ‘Enterprises should make efforts to achieve high environmental protection standards’. The exchange rate of the yuan (Chinese currency) Four questions on the issue of the exchange rate of the yuan were addressed to four elite groups: scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers. Findings on individual groups show that officials (over 80 per cent) are more affirmative that ‘The EU demand that the yuan appreciate is intended to restrain China’s

15.6

15.3 41.7

44.5

5.8

47.3

52.7

84.7

94.2

The EU should make more effort in dealing with global warming

58.3

The attitudes of the EU countries in providing green technology to China are active

55.5

The green technology from the EU countries is helping China in reducing CO2 emissions

84.4

China should make more effort in dealing with global warming

72.3

The EU has recognised the efforts that China has made in response to the climate change issues

The EU countries and other Western industial countries should take the main responsibility in response to climate changes issues

27.7 The EU countries tried to limit industrial development through climate issues

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Figure 2.19  Elite groups’ perception of the climate change issue.

Agree Disagree

34   Li Zhang and Ying Yu competitiveness in exports’. NGO workers generally have the highest level of ‘don’t knows’. When the four groups are merged, with DKs being omitted, Figure 2.20 demonstrates that although 43.5 per cent agree that ‘The exchange rate of the yuan against the euro is a bit too high’, 81.9 per cent believe that ‘The EU demand that the yuan appreciate is intended to restrain China’s competitiveness in exports’. What is more, over 65.2 per cent of elite groups think that ‘Appreciation of the yuan is NEITHER good for China’s economic development NOR good in keeping China’s exports and imports balanced’.

Conclusion The FP7 project ‘Chinese Views of the EU’ utilised surveys as its main method to disaggregate Chinese perceptions concerning the EU and to ascertain the implications for the EU’s China policy. The public survey and the elite survey have systematically covered a series of topics in examining how Chinese public and different elite groups perceive the EU. To start with, it is found that the salient concepts of Europe perceived by the Chinese public are dominated by impressions on the three biggest powers in Europe – the United Kingdom, France and Germany – plus Russia regarding country, cities and historical figures. The Chinese public’s actual knowledge of the EU is limited, but the knowledge level is much higher among the elite groups. Both the Chinese public and the elites showed a positive attitude, to different extents, towards European political, economic, social and cultural elements. In terms of Chinese affect Agree Disagree 71.1

65.2

28.9

34.8 Appreciation of RMB is good in keeping China’s exports and imports balanced

56.5

Appreciation of RMB is good for China’s economic development

18.1

81.9

The EU’s demand for RMB to appreciate is to restrain China’s competitiveness in exports

43.5 The exchange rate of RMB against euro is a bit too high

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Figure 2.20  Elite groups’ perception of the exchange rate of the yuan (renminbi, RMB).

Chinese views of the EU   35 towards the EU in comparison with other major powers in the world, both the Chinese public and the elite groups prefer the EU and its citizens to the United States, Russia and Japan, and their people. According to the survey, while the Chinese public hold an overwhelmingly positive view of the EU’s role in world peace, the international economy, environmental protection, scientific progress, fighting poverty in the world and fighting international terrorism, the elite groups are more cautious in giving positive answers. While the Chinese public believe the United States is still the most influential actor in the world in both political and economic aspects, the elite groups express that view even more strongly. Interestingly, though the public put China ahead of the EU in terms of both political and economic influence, elite Chinese rank China largely behind the EU. The Chinese public and elite also show a divergence of opinions regarding the current and future bilateral relations between the EU and China, but the general views are positive. Besides containing a number of the same questions as the public survey in order to make comparisons, the elite survey also included questions designed to be addressed to elite groups only. We find that the majority of those belonging to elites are dissatisfied with the EU’s China policy. There is very limited understanding between the EU and Chinese public of each other’s society and political institutions, though they are still able to appreciate each other’s culture. For elite Chinese, the Chinese public has slightly done better in terms of understanding and much better in appreciation than its EU counterpart. The areas for strengthening cooperation between China and the EU are still dominated by economy and trade, though the NGO workers put climate and the environment as the priority. The list of most controversial issues in China–EU relations is topped by the ‘human rights issue’, ‘Tibet issue’ and ‘institutional differences between China and the EU’, as perceived by the elite groups. Further questions regarding different controversial issues see a divergence of opinions among the five elite groups. Again, the aims of this chapter were to introduce the survey questions, illustrate the findings and, most importantly, to build up the framework of the range of themes that the surveys have covered. Further discussion of the findings and their implications through deeper analysis of the links between dependent variables and independent variables can be found in the following chapters.

Notes 1 European Commission (2003) ‘A maturing partnership: Shared interests and challenges in EU–China relations’, COM(2003) 533 fin, 10 September, Brussels. 2 European Commission (2005) ‘Visibility strategy study: Focus group analysis of perceptions of the EU in China’, reference: ac505v1, 31 May. 3 ‘System missing’ is excluded in all the statistics presented in this chapter. 4 Some basic statistics from China’s national census in 2010 can be found at http://news. ifeng.com/mainland/detail_2011_04/28/6037911_0.shtml (accessed 9 January 2012). 5 The findings on the perception about ‘The attitudes of the EU countries in providing green technology to China are active’ are limited to four of the elite groups: scholars, officials, NGO workers and media workers.

36   Li Zhang and Ying Yu

References Dai, B. and Zhang, S. (2007) ‘EU Perceptions in China’, in M. Holland, P. Ryan, A. Z. Nowak and N. Chaban (eds) The EU through the Eyes of Asia: Media, Public and Elite Perceptions in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand, Singapore and Warsaw: University of Warsaw Press, pp. 43–67. Men, J. (2006) ‘Chinese perceptions of the European Union: a review of leading Chinese journals’, European Law Journal, 12(6): 788–806. Shambaugh, D. (2004) ‘China and Europe: the emerging axis’, Current History, September, pp. 243–248. Zhang, L. (2011) News Media and EU–China Relations, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Zhu, L. (2008) ‘Chinese perceptions of the EU and the China–Europe relationship’, in D. Shambaugh, E. Sandschneider and H. Zhou (eds) China–Europe Relations: Perceptions, Policies and Prospects, London: Routledge, pp. 148–173.

3 Attitudes towards the EU among Chinese urban citizens In search of an explanation Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll

Introduction International cooperation theories assume the presence of positive attitudes, or at least the absence of negative attitudes, among elites and citizens towards the countries involved. The foreign policy options available to political elites may be constrained by ‘public opinion’ – that is, attitudes of the masses (Holsti 1962; Powlick 1995; Sinnott 1995; Foyle 1997). It is generally expected that the more positive the attitudes, the higher the willingness to cooperate politically, both bilaterally and within the context of international organizations. Various studies have demonstrated that attitudes do indeed have important effects on international political behavior, behavioral intentions, and desires and preferences (e.g. Ajzen and Madden 1986; Dekker et al. 2007). In this chapter, we focus on the relationship between China and the European Union (EU), and attitudes towards the EU among Chinese citizens in particular. The first research question is: What are the attitudes towards the European Union among Chinese citizens? Assuming variance in these attitudes, it is scientifically and socially relevant to study the etiology of these attitudes. This leads to the second research question: How can we explain the different attitudes towards the European Union among Chinese citizens? Our predictive model is based on theories that have been successful in explaining attitudes towards national and ethnic out-­groups in general. Direct contact theory predicts an induction of positive attitudes; knowledge theory predicts positive attitudes in cases of high levels of knowledge; image theory links positive attitudes to positive images or perceptions; conflict of interest theory predicts less positive attitudes in cases when there are perceptions of a conflict of interest or a threat; social identity theory also explains a reduction of positive out-­group attitudes; and political socialization theory can explain both the induction and the reduction of positive attitudes, depending on the socialization contents. These theories provide a basis on which to select the appropriate antecedents of attitudes towards the EU among Chinese people. We will not provide a direct test of the various theories here, but rather use them as a guide for developing hypotheses.

38   H. Dekker and J. van der Noll

Hypotheses The major characteristic of attitudes is their affective nature. An ‘attitude’ is ‘the amount of affect for or against some object’ (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975: 11), and ‘is simply a person’s general feeling of favourableness or un-­favourableness’ (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980: 54). Ajzen and Fishbein and others restrict the term to an individual’s evaluation of an object, and reject the three-­component conception of attitude, in which attitudes are made up of cognition, affect and behavior. We also think that a clear distinction between attitudes on the one hand and cognitions and behavior on the other contributes to conceptual clarification and the explanation of attitude formation and change. Following Hewstone (1986), Mackie and Hamilton (1993) and others, we theoretically distinguish three processes of political attitude development: processing one’s own experiences (direct contact), processing information from relevant others and media (socialization), and one’s own thinking (inference). All three assume that attitudes are developed in interaction with the environment. The first two processes are represented by the direct contact and socialization theories. The third process is represented by theories that focus on cognitive explanations such as knowledge, image, and conflict perception theories, and theories focusing on affective explanations, such as social identity and trust theories. According to the direct contact theory, direct contact with the attitude object results in a more positive or less negative attitude (Allport 1954; Brown and Hewstone 2005). A positive experience in a foreign country can spill over to include the whole country, while affection for one or more out-­group members can spill over to include the majority of the out-­group (Pettigrew 1998). The influence can be strong because, generally, people assign a privileged place to their own experiential orientations. Personal experiences – ‘I have seen it with my own eyes’ – generally have a strong impact on people’s orientations and are not easily forgotten. The effect of direct contact on attitudes has been extensively studied, and a meta-­analysis reviewing more than 500 studies has shown that the quantity of intergroup contact has a reducing effect on prejudice, and that this effect is stronger than the reversed effect of prejudice on the intensity of intergroup contact (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Besides the quantity, the quality of contact can also have an important effect on attitudes towards out-­groups. The combination of theory and available empirical evidence suggests that there must be a positive relationship between direct contact with the EU and the attitude towards the EU. Stated formally: H1. Direct contact with EU countries and citizens is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Socialization theory predicts that an attitude is the result of receiving, accepting and processing informative and affective messages from relevant others (Lasswell 1977; Dekker 1991; Sears 2003; Jennings 2007; Jennings et al. 2009;

Attitudes towards the EU   39 Van der Noll and Dekker 2010). Theoretically, the most influential messengers of political information and emotions are the people who first exert influence on the subject with respect to the issue under investigation (parents), who exert influence for the longest period of time (parents, best friend, partner), whose credibility the subject believes to be highest (parents, teachers, television news), who have the most power over the subject (parents, teachers, employers, political elites) and who have the most resources and skills to influence cognitions and emotions (political elites in cooperation with public relations and marketing experts). It is not only the frequency of communication (e.g. how often the EU is discussed with relevant others, as well as mass media use) that is important, but also the perceptions of the message (the perceived attitudes towards the EU on the part of the various socializers). Positive or negative messages about the EU from parents, teachers, the mass media, peers, colleagues and/or politicians are expected to influence the socializee to the point where he or she acquires a positive or negative attitude towards the EU. Messages from the media, particularly from highly commercialized media, have been shown to be powerful predictors of negativity towards the United States and Japan among Chinese people (Stockmann 2009, 2010). In formal terms, we expect that H2. Receiving positive messages about the EU from the various socialization agencies is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. In the cognitive inference approach, an attitude is seen as stemming from cognitions developed earlier – that is, what the individual knows (knowledge and insight) and believes to be ‘true’ (beliefs or perceptions) (Hamilton 1981; Hamilton and Trolier 1986; Grant 1990; McGraw 2000; Guan et al. 2010). Know­ ledge theory predicts that the more knowledge people have, the more positive their attitude will be (Jervis 1976; Popkin and Dimock 2000). Two types of knowledge are distinguished: objective and subjective knowledge. People have objective knowledge if they are able to answer a number of factual questions about an object correctly, without any aid or assistance. Subjective knowledge is self-­assessed knowledge – that is, the self-­perception that one has no knowledge, a little knowledge or considerable knowledge. Sometimes researchers use subjective knowledge as a surrogate for objective knowledge in order to avoid the difficulties relating to measuring objective knowledge. However, congruence is not self-­evident; one may believe oneself to know a lot but fail the test. Therefore, it is necessary to study objective knowledge – that is, demonstrated know­ ledge – in addition to subjective knowledge. Knowledge is restricted to ‘the truth’ – that is, what has been or can be proved to be ‘true’ – and differs from beliefs or perceptions. A belief is something that one believes to be true but cannot be proved ‘true’. The proof cannot be given because, among other reasons, data are missing or the concept has more than one meaning. Perceptions or beliefs may take over the role of knowledge. ‘[W]e learn to like (or have

40   H. Dekker and J. van der Noll favorable attitudes toward) objects we believe have positive characteristics, and we acquire unfavorable attitudes toward objects we associate with negative characteristics’ (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980: 63). Image theory predicts that the more positive images, beliefs or perceptions people have, the more positive their attitude will be (Boulding 1959; Hermann 2003; Alexander et al. 2005). The variables relevant for our study are perceptions (images) of the EU, perceptions of European democracy, perceptions of European ways of doing business and perceptions (stereotypes) of EU citizens. Conflict perception theory focuses on the relationship between one’s own country and the foreign country, and predicts that negative attitudes result from a perception of a negative relationship between China and the EU, perception of a conflict of interests regarding scarce resources, and a perception of a conflict of values (Stephan and Stephan 2000; Chen 2001; Stephan et al. 2005; Riek et al. 2006; Brewer 2006). Positive attitudes are expected to be caused by a perception of a positive relationship between China and the EU, a perception of common interests, a perception of common values and a perception of a positive role of the EU in the world. The combination of theory and the available empirical evidence suggests that there is a relationship between knowledge and perceptions of the EU and the attitude towards the EU. On the basis of this reasoning, we expect that H3. Objective and subjective knowledge of the EU are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU; H4. Positive perceptions of the EU (1), European ideas of democracy (2), European ways of doing business (3), and EU citizens (4) are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU, and H5. Perceptions of a positive EU–China relationship (1), common interests (2), shared values (3) and a positive role of the EU in the world (4) are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU.

According to the affective inference approach, an attitude stems from other previously acquired affects. These affects can regard objects related to the object of the attitude under study, as well as the individuals themselves. Social identity theory argues that people have a fundamental need for a positive self-­identity and that this identity is to a large extent derived from membership of a social group (Turner et al. 1979; Tajfel and Turner 1986; see also Huddy 2003). People compare their own group with others and evaluate the group to which they belong positively, whereas they evaluate other groups less positively, or even negatively. It is especially people who suffer from low self-­esteem who, more than others, can be inclined to strengthen their positive attitude towards their own group and develop a more negative attitude towards out-­groups. An

Attitudes towards the EU   41 important in-­group is one’s national group – that is, one’s own country and people (Bloom 1990) – and several studies have shown that attitudes towards one’s own country and people have an impact on attitudes towards ethnic out-­ groups living within the country (Coenders and Scheepers 2004; Hagendoorn and Poppe 2004) and towards foreign countries and peoples (Dekker et al. 1998, 2003). According to trust theory, trust is a central requirement for all relationships between individuals, groups and societies; trust contributes to a positive attitude and distrust to a negative attitude (Niedermayer 1995; Larson 1997; Brewer and Steenbergen 2002; Brewer et al. 2004; Brewer 2004). Trust is ‘the expectation that another’s behavior will be predictably friendly, while distrust is the expectation that another’s behavior will be harmful or unpredictable’ (Inglehart 1991: 146). The combination of theory and the available empirical evidence suggests the following hypotheses: H6. Self-­esteem is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU; H7. A moderately positive attitude towards one’s own country (patriotism) is not related to the attitude towards the EU (1), whereas a very positive attitude towards one’s own country (nationalism) is negatively related to a positive attitude towards the EU (2); and H8. Trust is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Control variables are age, gender, education level and social status. A fairly common finding in studies is that the attitudes of older respondents towards out-­ groups are more negative than those of younger ones. Also, many of these studies find that females have less negative out-­group attitudes than males. People with more years, or a higher level, of education also usually have less negative views of out-­groups, because higher levels of education usually result in more knowledge and less one-­sided perceptions about out-­groups, and a more moderate attitude towards one’s in-­group. With respect to social status, we may also expect a positive relation because of more direct contact, more positive socialization, higher education, higher levels of knowledge and less one-­sided perceptions.

Procedure Data collection Our data were provided by the public opinion dataset of the EU FP7 Project ‘Chinese Views of the EU’. This project is a follow-­up study to the 2007 research conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Wen 2006; Liqun 2008). The data for our study were collected through a survey developed in several meetings of the ‘Chinese Views of the EU’ research project team. All

42   H. Dekker and J. van der Noll English items used in our study were translated into Chinese by a local bilingual translator, and a native English speaker with good Chinese proficiency was then asked to back-­translate these items. Back-­translation was compared with the original English version, and some minor modifications were made to produce the final Chinese version. A pre-­test of the questionnaire among 150 Beijing inhabitants was conducted in November and December 2009. The survey was carried out in six cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Chengdu and Nanning) in July and August 2010. These cities were chosen to give coverage of differences across regions, levels of economic development, and integration into international markets. In each city, 500 respondents, subdivided according to the various districts, were asked to participate in the study. Sampling was based on probability proportional to size (PPS) random sampling, using lists of registered residence, excluding migrant workers and the rural population. The samples were drawn separately for each city. Data were collected by the Chinese Academy of Social Science and the People’s University of China in collaboration with local partner institutions. The study was presented to the respondents as a public opinion survey about ‘Chinese people’s views of Europe and the European Union’. Respondents Across the six cities in China, 3,019 urban residents participated in the survey. For our study, we used those 2,410 respondents who answered the two questions regarding the dependent variable (attitude towards the EU). In this sample, age varied from 18 to 70 (M = 41, SD = 14). The gender distribution was almost even (53 percent male). The majority of the respondents were employed (66 per cent), and the average income ranged from 10,000 to 30,000 yuan. The average number of years of education was 12.5 (SD = 3.2), and ranged from 0 to 22 years. One-­fifth of the respondents had junior secondary education or below (21 per cent), one-­third had senior secondary education (36 per cent), one-­fifth college education (21 per cent) and almost a quarter had university education or higher (23 per cent). Most respondents positioned themselves fairly low on the social status continuum. Measures Attitude towards the EU was measured by two questions. The first was: ‘Please tell me if you have a very unfavorable, somewhat unfavorable, somewhat favorable or a very favorable impression of the EU?’ The Chinese word for ‘impression’ has a stronger affective dimension than the English word. The second question was: ‘Please tell me if you have a very unfavorable, somewhat unfavorable, somewhat favorable or a very favorable impression of EU citizens?’ The first question was also asked about the United States, Japan and Russia, and the second question also about the Americans, Japanese, Russians, British, Germans and French. Direct contact with the EU was measured by three questions about contact with the EU, and two questions about personal experiences. The first question

Attitudes towards the EU   43 was ‘Have you ever been to EU countries?’ (‘yes’ or ‘no’). The second was ‘Were your experiences while you were in the EU countries in general very negative, very positive, or something in between, using this scale?’ (1 = ‘very neg­ ative’ to 10 = ‘very positive’). The third and fourth questions were ‘Are you in touch with foreigners in your life/work?’ (‘yes’ or ‘no’) and ‘Do they include people from EU countries?’ (‘yes’ or ‘no’). The fifth question was ‘Are your contacts with people of EU countries in general very negative, very positive, or something in between, using this scale?’ (1 = ‘very negative’ to 10 = ‘very positive’). We constructed two variables based on these questions, the first distinguishing between people with and without personal experiences of the EU and its citizens, and the second averaging the evaluation of these experiences. Socialization about the EU was measured using three questions about the sources, and one question about the contents of the socialization. First, the respondents were asked: ‘What is your most important source of information about EU countries? Choose three.’ The sources presented on a card were ‘Family and relatives’, ‘Teachers and textbooks’, ‘Television’, ‘Newspaper’, ‘Radio’, ‘Internet’, ‘Books’, ‘Friends’, ‘Work and colleagues’ and ‘Party’. The next question was: ‘Is the information you received from this source generally very negative, negative, positive or very positive about EU countries?’ Objective knowledge of the EU was measured by 11 factual questions. The first question was a multiple-­choice question: ‘Where are the headquarters of the EU located? In Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Brussels or Strasbourg?’ The second question was an open question: ‘How many member states does the EU have?’ The next five questions were ‘Which of these countries is or are part of the EU? Turkey, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Norway.’ The last four questions concerned the use of the euro: ‘Which one of the following countries does not use the euro? France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.’ In addition, the following question measuring subjective knowledge of the EU was asked: ‘How much do you feel you know about the European Union?’ The respondents could indicate their self-­assessed knowledge on a scale ranging from 1 = ‘nothing at all’ to 10 = ‘a great deal’. Perception of the EU was measured by asking the respondents to compare their perceptions of the EU with their perceptions of their own country. The question was formulated as follows: ‘For each of the following domains, would you say that the situation in the EU area is better or worse than in China? What about . . .’, followed by the domains ‘the prospects for the economy in the EU area’, ‘the employment situation in the EU area’, ‘the situation of the environment in the EU area’, ‘the social welfare situation in the EU area’, ‘family relations in the EU area’ and ‘quality of life in the EU area’. The answer options were: ‘better than in China’, ‘worse than in China’ and ‘roughly the same’. In addition, we measured perceptions of two important elements of the EU: democracy and the economy. The first question was about the respondent’s perception of European ideas of democracy: ‘Which of the following phrases comes closer to your view? “I like European ideas about democracy” or “I dislike European ideas about democracy”.’ The second

44   H. Dekker and J. van der Noll question was about the respondent’s perception of European ways of doing business: ‘I like European ways of doing business, or I dislike European ways of doing business.’ The answer options were the same as those mentioned in the question text, plus ‘It’s hard to tell.’ Perception of EU citizens was measured by two questions. The first was ‘Do you think that in general the EU citizens are peaceful or aggressive? Please select a value on the seven-­point scale below that expresses your view’ (‘very peaceful’, ‘quite peaceful’, ‘somewhat peaceful’, ‘neutral’, ‘somewhat aggressive’, ‘quite aggressive’ and ‘very aggressive’). The second question was ‘Do you think that in general EU citizens are trustworthy or that they cannot be trusted?’ (‘very trustworthy’, ‘quite trustworthy’, ‘somewhat trustworthy’, ‘neutral’, ‘somewhat untrustworthy’, ‘quite untrustworthy’ and ‘very untrustworthy’). Both questions were also asked about the Chinese, Japanese, Amer­ icans and Russians. Perception of the China–EU relationship was measured by two questions. The first question was: ‘Do you think that in general the China–EU relationship is good or bad at the moment? Please select a value on the seven-­point scale below that expresses your view.’ The scale consisted of the following answer options: ‘very good’, ‘quite good’, ‘somewhat good’, ‘neutral’, ‘somewhat bad’, ‘quite bad’ and ‘very bad’. The second question: was ‘Please could you indicate how friendly or unfriendly is the China–EU relationship? 1 means very unfriendly, 10 means very friendly.’ Respondents were also asked how friendly or unfriendly they considered China’s relationship with the United States, Japan and Russia. Perception of common interests between China and the EU was measured by the following question: ‘Some people say that China and the European Union have enough common interests to be able to cooperate on international problems. Others say that China and the European Union have such different interests that cooperating on international problems is impossible. Which statement comes closer to your opinion?’ The answer options were ‘enough common interest to cooperate on international problems’, ‘such different interests that cooperating on international problems is impossible’ and ‘they don’t have many common interests, but can still work together’. The respondents were also asked to what extent they thought the EU takes the interests of China into account (answer categories ranging from 1, ‘a great deal’, to 4, ‘not at all’). Perception of a conflict of values between China and the EU was measured by the following question: ‘In your opinion, in terms of values are China and the EU countries very close to each other, close to each other, fairly distant from each other, very distant from each other?’ The same question was also asked about the United States, Japan and Russia. In addition, we asked whether respondents thought China and the EU had enough in common to be able to cooperate on international problems (the answer categories being ‘enough common values’, ‘not many common values, but can cooperate’ and ‘such different values that cooperation is impossible’). Perception of the EU’s role in the world was measured by asking: ‘In your opinion, would you say that the EU tends to play a positive or a negative role

Attitudes towards the EU   45 regarding . . .?’. Six domains were presented: ‘peace in the world’, ‘the international economy’, ‘protection of the environment’, ‘scientific progress’, ‘fighting poverty in the world’ and ‘fighting international terrorism’. Self-­esteem was measured by asking for a reaction to one of Rosenberg’s (1965) ‘self-­esteem scale’ items: ‘On the whole, I am satisfied with myself ’ (‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’). Two questions about attitudes towards the respondents’ own country, China, were included in the survey. Patriotism was measured by three questions asking, respectively, ‘How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements? “I am proud of being Chinese”, “I have a good feeling about what the Chinese people have done” and “China can be proud of what it represents” ’ (‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’). Satisfaction with one’s own country was measured by asking: ‘How satisfied are you with the following aspects of Chinese society?’ The aspects were ‘the economy’, ‘the employment situation’, ‘the situation of the environment’, ‘the social welfare situation’ and ‘public safety’. The answer options were ‘very satisfied’, ‘fairly satisfied’, ‘not so satisfied’ and ‘not satisfied at all’. Trust was measured by two questions. For interpersonal trust, the question was whether the respondents agreed or disagreed with the following statement: ‘Most people are trustworthy’ (‘strongly agree’, ‘somewhat agree’, ‘somewhat disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’). For trust in other nations, the statement was ‘Generally speaking, China can trust other nations’ (‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’). All measures relating to the EU, EU citizens and the relation between China and the EU were coded in such a way that a higher score reflected a positive orientation.

Results Descriptive statistics Most respondents had a positive to very positive attitude towards the European Union (85 percent); only 6 percent had a negative attitude, and the remaining 9 percent took a neutral stance. The attitude towards the EU was based on two variables: the impression of the EU, and the impression of EU citizens. Almost nine out of ten respondents indicated having a somewhat or very favorable impression of the EU (77 percent and 10 percent, respectively), and more than nine out of ten respondents indicated having a somewhat or very favorable impression of EU citizens (81 percent and 11 percent, respectively). The correlation between the two questions is moderate (r = 0.43, p