A survey of Americans' views of China released on Wednesday indicates that 59 percent of the American public view China favorably, up 13 percentage points from 1994.
Americans also view the current relationship with China as improving and expect relationships to continue to improve. Most opinion leaders cited China's business and market-based economy as the driving force in this trend, with some others attributing it to improved communications.
Familiarity with US-China relations has increased markedly, with 60 percent of the general public somewhat to very familiar, compared with just 18 percent in 1994.
The survey indicated that 82 percent of business leaders and 73 percent of ordinary citizens consider Sino-US trade beneficial to the United States.
Only 24 percent of the public saw China as an economic threat and 15 percent regarded the country as a military threat.
However, only 19 percent of the congressional staff polled held a positive attitude toward China. Some 54 percent considered China an economic threat and 36 percent believed the country poses a military threat.
Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University, said that the change in Americans' attitude may be attributed to a shift in US foreign policy toward China in recent years For some years after the end of the Cold War, the United States exaggerated the strategic threat posed by China, creating a generally negative impression, Yan said.
"Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US administration of President George W. Bush, however, has shown a desire to work with China in its campaign against global terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Yan said. "Thus, the administration has changed its past tactics of exaggerating China's threat into one of strengthening the country's partnership."
However, the poll indicated that only about 30 percent of Americans view China as a "dependable ally" in the war on terrorism. While opinion leaders and the general public view China as a stronger ally than Saudi Arabia or France, they rate it far below the UK and Japan
In a poll released by Beijing's Global Times in February, 52.9 percent of Chinese respondents said they "generally like" Americans while 13.2 said they "like" them, and 51.9 percent said they feel generally satisfied with Sino-US ties.
(China Daily, China.org.cn April 8, 2005)
