Chinese public opinion’s role in the South China Sea: evidence from an expert survey

The prospect of Chinese nationalist public opinion driving a spiral of escalation in the South China Sea has been debated among analysts and policymakers for well over a decade. How do Southeast Asian claimant states and external great powers such as the United States interpret the role of Chinese public opinion in the South China Sea dispute, and how might this affect their policy preferences? This article uses a scenario-based survey experiment with international affairs experts in the Philippines, Vietnam and the United States to examine how nationalist sentiment in China influences observers’ risk perceptions and policy preferences in a hypothetical crisis. Experts in the two Southeast Asian claimant countries gave higher initial estimations of China’s resolve, but attached much less significance to Chinese public opinion than US analysts. Effects on preferred policy responses were mixed, but respondents in all three countries became more willing to countenance economic costs if necessary to stand up to China. The results offer suggestive evidence for the influence of mirror-imaging on estimations of resolve, with observers in democracies generally attributing more significance to Chinese public opinion than those in the study’s single non-democracy.