How East Asians View the Rise of China

Its newly acquired status as the world's second largest economy has entitled China to a more prominent role in global affairs, and increasingly, its behavior has drawn scrutiny from the world in ways that the country is ill-prepared for. The attention to China's rise, however, focuses not only on its economy but also on other aspects, including its military, diplomatic moves, domestic politics and its ‘soft power’, namely, its own image or self-projection and the world's perception or attitudes toward China. And yet, there has been no systematic investigation to evaluate how the world views a rising China. In this article, the authors applied the latest dataset from the Asian Barometer Survey to investigate whether East Asians recognize and welcome the rise of China. The findings suggest that geographical and cultural proximity have a great impact on people's perception of China. Countries which are territorially adjacent or culturally close to China tend to regard China as the most influential country in Asia. With the exception of Japan and Mongolia, most Asian countries hold positive views about the impact of China on the region. However, such benign evaluations are weaker in countries which have potential security conflicts with China, such as Taiwan and South Korea, when only the bilateral impact is considered. The overall picture shows that the rise of China has been largely recognized and welcomed by East Asians, despite some apprehension about China's strategic intentions to its neighboring countries.