The Chinese Public’s Perceptions of the European Union: Changes and Stability Revealed by 2010 and 2020 Surveys

ABSTRACT

A survey conducted in 2010 showed that Chinese citizens had rather positive impressions of the EU and were optimistic for the future of China—EU relations. Against the background of increasing tensions between China and the EU, this study focuses on the changes in the Chinese public’s perceptions of the EU and of China-EU relations in the last decade. The analysis uses data from the original 2010 survey, as well as from new survey conducted in fall 2020, each including roughly 3000 respondents in six major Chinese cities. Results are that the Chinese public’s overall perception of the EU as well as of China-EU relations remains one of general goodwill, even though critical opinions of the EU have become more widespread.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sun Long for facilitating the administration of the survey and Caiyi Zhang for her excellent assistance on the data analysis. Also, we are grateful for the funding support provided by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) in the framework of the Bilateral Science and Technology Cooperation Program with Asia (Grant number BG 06-092019).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2022.2138698.

Notes

¹ Lisheng Dong, ‘Chinese Perceptions of the European Union’ [2014] 23(88) Journal of Contemporary China 756–79.

² François Godement, ‘China’s Relations with Europe’ in David Shambaugh (ed), China and the World (Oxford University Press, 2020). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190062316.003.0012.

³ Nicola Casarini, ‘The Evolution of the EU-China Relationship: From Constructive Engagement to Strategic Partnership’ (2006) Occasional Paper No. 64, European Union Institute for Security Studies.

⁴ David Shambaugh, ‘China and Europe: The Emerging Axis’ [2004] 103(674) Current History 243–48.

⁵ Eva Schilling, ‘When the Rising Dragon Sees Fading Stars: China’s View of the European Union’ (29 November 2012) CEPS Special Report No. 73.

⁶ Paul C Irwin Crookes, ‘EU Soft Power with China: Technical Assistance in the Field of Intellectual Property Rights’ (2014) 19 European Foreign Affairs Review. (Special).

⁷ Matthias Hackler, ‘Rapprochement Amid Readjustment: How China Sees Issues and Trends in Its Changing Relationship with the EU’ [2020] 18(2) Asia Europe Journal 251–258; Wang Xieshu, Ruet Joel, and Richer Xavier, One Belt One Road and the Reconfiguration of China-EU Relations. No. 2017–04 (Centre d’Economie de l’Université de Paris Nord, 2017).

⁸ Yun Sun, ‘Chinese Public Opinion: Shaping China’s Foreign Policy, or Shaped by It?’ (Brookings East Asia Commentary, 2011) <https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/chinese-public-opinion-shaping-chinas-foreign-policy-or-shaped-by-it/>; Jessica Chen Weiss and Allan Dafoe, ‘Authoritarian Audiences, Rhetoric and Propaganda in International Crises: Evidence from China’ (2019) International Studies Quarterly 963–973.

⁹ Li Zhang, ‘Research Progress in Chinese perceptions of the EU: A Critical Review and Methodological Reflection’ [2020] 18(1) Asia Europe Journal 17–34.

¹⁰ Vincent KL Chang and Frank N Pieke, ‘Europe’s Engagement with China: Shifting Chinese Views of the EU and the EU-China Relationship’ [2018] 16(4) Asia Europe Journal 317–31.

¹¹ Adam Liu, Xiaojun Li, and Songying Fang, ‘Chinese Attitudes towards U.S. and Other Major Economies’ (2020). [November 2020 Topline Survey Results—Updated].

¹² Sonia Lucarelli, ‘European Political Identity, Foreign Policy and the Others’ Image: An Under-Explored Relationship’ in F Cerutti and S Lucarelli (eds), The Search for a European Identity. Values, Policies and Legitimacy of the European Union (Routledge, 2008) 23–42.

¹³ Li Zhang, ‘“Reflexive Expectations” in EU–China Relations: A Media Analysis Approach’ [2016] 54(2) JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 463–479.

¹⁴ Jessica Chen Weiss, ‘How Hawkish is the Chinese Public? Another Look at “Rising Nationalism” and Chinese Foreign Policy’ [2019] 28(119) Journal of Contemporary China 679–95 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2019.1580427>.

¹⁵ Yiwei Wang, ‘The Identity Dilemmas of EU Normative Power: Observations from Chinese Traditional Culture’ in Normative Power Europe in a Changing World: A Discussion (2009) 67–76.

¹⁶ Kenneth Chan, ‘Images, Visibility and the Prospects of Soft Power of the EU in Asia: The Case of China’ [2010] 8(2) Asia Europe Journal 133–47; Anna Michalski, ‘The EU as a Soft Power: The Force of Persuasion’ in The New Public Diplomacy (Springer, 2005) 124–44.

¹⁷ Yunya Song, Chin-Chuan Lee, and Zeping Huang, ‘The News Prism of Nationalism versus Globalism: How Does the US, UK and Chinese Elite Press Cover “China’s Rise”?’ [2021] 22(8) Journalism 2071–90.

¹⁸ David Kurt Herold and Peter Marolt, 25 Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating, and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival (Taylor & Francis, 2011); Christopher R Hughes and Gudrun Wacker, China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward (Routledge 2003); Wen Lin, ‘When Web 2.0 Meets Public Participation GIS (PPGIS): VGI and Spaces of Participatory Mapping in China’ in Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge (Springer, 2013) 83–103.

¹⁹ Lai Lin Thomala, ‘Internet Usage in China—Statistics & Facts’ (Statista, 25 April 2022) <https://www.statista.com/topics/1179/internet-usage-in-china/#dossierContents__outerWrapper>.

²⁰ Rogier Creemers, ‘Cyber China: Upgrading Propaganda, Public Opinion Work and Social Management for the Twenty-First Century’ [2017] 26(103) Journal of Contemporary China 85–100.

²¹ Johan Lagerkvist, ‘The Rise of Online Public Opinion in the People’s Republic of China’ [2005] 3(1) China: An International Journal 119–30; Piers Robinson, ‘The Role of Media and Public Opinion’ (2008) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases 137–54.

²² Florian Schneider, China’s Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2018).

²³ The 2010 survey was conducted within the project: ‘Chinese Views of the EU: Disaggregating Chinese Perceptions of the EU and the Implications for the EU’s China Policy’, a collaborative effort by a consortium of educational institutions, namely 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 (the Netherlands), Jacobs University Bremen (Germany) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London (United Kingdom), funded by EU’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7). For an overview, see Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker, China and European Union. (Routledge, 2013).

²⁴ The 2020 survey was conducted by the authors of this article, in the framework of a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (China), Renmin University (China), as well as the University of Zurich (Switzerland).

²⁵ Priscilla A Glasow, ‘Fundamentals of Survey Research Methodology’ (18 January 2005) 2013; L Zhang, ‘Research Progress in Chinese Perceptions of the EU: A Critical Review and Methodological Reflection’ [2020] 18(1) Asia Europe Journal 17–34.

²⁶ Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang, and Henk Dekker (eds), China and the European union. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Kenneth Chan, ‘Images, Visibility and the Prospects of Soft Power of the EU in Asia: The Case of China’ [2010] 8(2) Asia Europe Journal 133–47; Zhimin Chen and Lilei Song, ‘The Conceptual Gap on Soft Power between China and Europe and Its Impact on Bilateral Relations’ in Conceptual Gaps in China-EU Relations: Global Governance, Human Rights and Strategic Partnerships (2012) 50–64; Yiwei Wang, ‘The Identity Dilemmas of EU Normative Power: Observations from Chinese Traditional Culture’ Normative Power Europe in a Changing World: A Discussion (2009) 67–76.

²⁹ Sara Hsu, ‘Is China’s Belt and Road Initiative a Threat to the US?’ (The Diplomat, 2021) <https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/is-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-a-threat-to-the-us/>; Tariq H Malik, ‘The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Project Legitimization: The Rhetor’s Innovation and the US Response’ (2020) Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 2057891120959476.

³⁰ Jinghan Zeng, ‘Artificial Intelligence and China’s Authoritarian Governance’ [2020] 96(6) International Affairs 1441–59.

³¹ Yunya Song, Chin-Chuan Lee, and Zeping Huang, ‘The News Prism of Nationalism versus Globalism: How Does the US, UK and Chinese Elite Press Cover “China’s Rise”?’ [2021] 22(8) Journalism 2071–90.

³² Sanna Kopra, China and Great Power Responsibility for Climate Change (Taylor & Francis, 2018).

³³ Kai He and Feng Liu, ‘China’s Peaceful Rise: From Narrative to Practice’ in TV Paul, Deborah Welch Larson, Harold A Trinkunas, Anders Wivel and Ralf Emmers (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations (2020) <https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190097356.001.0001>.

³⁴ John Seaman, COVID-19 and Europe-China Relations: A Country-Level Analysis (French Institute of International Relations, 2020); Laura Silver, Kat Devlin, and Christine Huang, Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries (Pew Research Center, 6 October 2020).

³⁵ Bartosz Kowalski, ‘China’s Mask Diplomacy in Europe: Seeking Foreign Gratitude and Domestic Stability’ (2021) 50(2) Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 209–226; Jingwen Qi, Stijn Joye, and Sarah Van Leuven, ‘Framing China’s Mask Diplomacy in Europe during the Early Covid-19 Pandemic: Seeking and Contesting Legitimacy through Foreign Medical Aid amidst Soft Power Promotion’ (2021) Chinese Journal of Communication 1–22.

³⁶ Charlie Campbell, ‘China’s “Mask Diplomacy” is Faltering. But the U.S. Isn’t Doing Any Better’ (Time, 2020) <https://time.com/5814940/china-mask-diplomacy-falters/>.

³⁷ Jaap Van Ginneken, Collective Behavior and Public Opinion: Rapid Shifts in Opinion and Communication (Routledge, 2003).

³⁸ Richard Turcsany and others, ‘European Public United on China: Selective Cooperation in Spite of Negative Perceptions’ (2021) <https://china-in-europe.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CHERN-Policy-Brief-European-public-united-on-China.pdf>.

³⁹ Thorsten Benneret and others, ‘Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe’ (2018); Larry Diamond, ‘Authoritarian Surge: A Hard Time for Democracy in Asia’ (2021) East Asia Forum Quarterly 15–17.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation [Grant number BG 06-092019].