How America and China see each other: charting national views and official perceptions

Abstract

Based on the premise that perception operates either as a catalyst or a constraint for a hegemonic war, this study examines ‘national perceptions’ (i.e. how the citizens of the two states view each other) and ‘official views’ (i.e. how the two governments perceive each other) between the US and China of the post-Cold War period. As for the national views, (1) American perceptions of China have generally become more negative than Chinese perceptions of America; (2) little congruence is found between the two powers on key values and norms; and (3) perceptions are generally getting far ahead of the realities. As for the official views, formal documents do not fully reveal their real state of minds. Diplomatic courtesy and strategic self-esteem runs through them. Yet, America’s strategic concern and growing will to manage China from a position of strength is increasingly more discernible. From the Chinese documents, on the other hand, signs of inferiority have gradually disappeared. In sum, perceptions between the two are working more as a catalyst for strategic competition than a constraint on it.

Keywords:

• US–China relations
• perceptions
• public opinion
• China’s rise
• power transition
• hegemonic competition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jae Ho Chung is a professor of international relations and the director of the Program on US–China Relations at Seoul National University, Korea. Professor Chung is the author or editor of eighteen books, including Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2007) and Centrifugal Empire (Columbia University Press, 2016). He is the recipient of Seoul National University’s Best Researcher Award in 2009 and of the Korean Association for International Studies’ Best Book Award in 2012.

Notes

1 While the Global Times is a sister publication published by the People’s Daily (renmin ribao), the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouth piece, it often carries highly provocative and even controversial articles on international relations. They may not necessarily be in line with the official positions and, oftentimes, those articles are used to test the water. The surveys conducted by the Global Times, therefore, need to be interpreted with a grain of salt.

2 The NSS series were published annually during the 1990s but, since then, they were produced biannually and later once every four to five years.

3 Prior to 2013, all reports were entitled China’s National Defense. Since 2013, this biannual publication adopted all different titles: Guofang baipishu (National Defense White Paper) in 2013, Zhongguo de junshi zhanlue (China’s Military Strategy) in 2015, and Zhongguo de yatai anquan hezuo zhengce (China’s Policy toward Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific) in 2017.

4 The “positive” refers to the sum of those who viewed China as an ally and friendly. The “negative” denotes the sum of those for enemy and unfriendly.

5 This is one of this study’s contributions to the field, which earlier studies (e.g., Page & Xie, 2010) did not highlight.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2015S1A5A2A03048000), and by the Asia Research Foundation Grant from the Seoul National University Asia Center (#SNUAC-2016-005).