In recent decades, China experienced a remarkable rise that led some observers to believe its ascendance to the world stage would be inevitable. Since 1978, China’s Gross National Product has increased 40-fold, and it now boasts the largest financial reserves, a significant trade surplus, the biggest economy measured by purchasing power parity, and the most extensive naval power globally in terms of the number of ships.
However, an American viewpoint suggests that China’s global image, previously characterized as positive or at least neutral, has deteriorated in recent years—not only among leading democracies such as the United States and Japan but also among developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, with which China maintained positive relations from the 1990s until late 2010.
In this context, a study titled “The Collapse of China’s Global Image” by Joshua Kurlantzick, published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), outlines the key reasons behind China’s declining popularity and how this may affect its strategic, economic, and diplomatic goals. It also considers how the United States and its allies might leverage this situation to mitigate Chinese influence.
From Popularity to Aversion:
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Beijing effectively employed modest official diplomacy, various forms of soft power, and a relatively restrained foreign policy to cultivate a positive image in many countries across Asia and beyond. China began expanding its informational tools and adjusting its media efforts. By 2000, it launched China Central Television International (CCTV) as a global news channel broadcasting in English. Additionally, it broadened its elite-to-elite diplomacy not only in Asia but also in Africa and Latin America, coinciding with a significant decline in the popularity of the United States due to the Iraq War. Beijing also expanded its foreign aid to Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and other regions.
China increased its diverse training programs for foreign officials, most of whom came from developing countries. Meanwhile, Chinese diplomats publicly reiterated that Beijing would remain a modest and non-interventionist power, unlike the United States, and would support each country’s unique path to development without imposing its own model. The central government in Beijing also initiated new scholarship funding to increase the number of foreign students studying at Chinese universities, while simultaneously boosting the number of Chinese students traveling to Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore, and Western nations, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2004, China launched the Confucius Institute program to partner with various universities in teaching the Chinese language and cultural studies, with its first branch opening in the United States during the 2004/2005 academic year.
However, this upward trend of China’s positive image from the 1990s to mid-2010 experienced a notable decline, replaced by a negative perception. This was affirmed by a 2021 Pew Research Center study conducted across seventeen different countries, including the United States, which indicated that “the overwhelming majority in most advanced economies surveyed hold negative views of China.”
In Southeast Asia, a comprehensive annual survey released in early 2022 in Singapore found that the vast majority of Southeast Asian citizens were “worried about China’s increasing political and strategic influence in the region.” Even in the Middle East and Africa, where China invested heavily in infrastructure, perceptions of China deteriorated, and animosity towards China was on the rise in countries like Cambodia and Zimbabwe.
Factors Behind the Image Decline:
The CFR study identifies three key reasons for the decline in China’s popularity:
Decline of Diplomatic Efforts: In recent years, China has shifted from modest diplomacy to a more aggressive stance. Evidence suggests that China’s aggressiveness began to escalate before Xi Jinping’s term started in 2012-2013, but this overt aggressive diplomacy flourished under his leadership, with ministers and ambassadors frequently making thorny nationalist statements about foreign countries. This resulted in a widening gap between China and many leading democracies—an issue that was evident even before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Throughout the pandemic and into the current conflict in Ukraine, bold Chinese diplomats have verbally attacked foreign nations. The study suggests that China has recently spread disinformation concerning the origins of Covid-19 and several other topics, as well as disseminating misleading information about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, portraying Russia as the real victim, and using the internet to propagate false narratives.
Economic Coercion: China has increasingly been open about using economic coercion against countries that criticize its domestic and foreign policies, targeting dozens of countries and multinational corporations that take critical stances on issues Beijing considers vital, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang, or those that criticize Xi’s leadership or demand investigations into the origins of Covid-19.
Australia serves as a significant example of China’s economic coercion. After Australia expressed a desire for a more transparent investigation into the emergence of Covid-19 and the Morrison government’s criticism of human rights abuses in China, Beijing retaliated by imposing tariffs on a range of Australian exports and creating non-tariff barriers against other products such as timber.
Struggles of Soft Power: China’s “Zero-Covid” strategy effectively isolated it from the world, impacting its soft power efforts by greatly reducing various student and visitor programs that had previously bolstered its image abroad, particularly in developing nations. This was compounded by a sharp decline in the number of Chinese tourists traveling abroad.
Beijing attempted to modernize its global media presence through China Global Television Network (CGTN), China Radio International (CRI), and the English-language China Daily newspaper. It has hired prominent local journalists and correspondents from major global outlets, and has increased its state media presence on social media platforms. However, many of these state-run media outlets have failed to achieve high levels of viewership or listenership. The large followings of Chinese state media outlets on social media may not be genuine, and the study indicates that China may have utilized fake followers on Twitter to retweet Chinese diplomats. Furthermore, many Facebook followers of Chinese state media sites appear to have been purchased, as companies can buy likes, shares, and followers, according to the Associated Press.
Global Implications:
China’s declining global image will not entirely undermine its capacity to exert significant military and economic power in neighboring countries or abroad. It remains the dominant economic power in Asia. In the Taiwan Strait, China is increasingly shifting the balance of power through land reclamation and a variety of other tactics to move towards military control over the South China Sea. The negative perception of Beijing results in several implications:
Loss of Allies and Trade Deals: The decline in Beijing’s popularity creates barriers to its foreign policy objectives, including diplomacy, economics, global governance, and more. For instance, data from global companies indicate a decline in investments in China, including recent figures from the Rhodium Group showing a slowdown in direct German investment in China, a trend mirrored in U.S. foreign direct investment. Additionally, some Asian democracies and other European countries, apart from Germany, are increasingly distancing their businesses from advocating for China and initiating stricter policies regarding internal Chinese investment, generally adopting more rigid foreign policies toward Beijing.
Despite Beijing’s stringent approach toward several companies, this strategy has had counterproductive effects on others, as they diversify their investments in other locations, such as the Balkans, Central America, Thailand, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, the European Union, which publicly criticized China’s “authoritarian shift” last year, has frozen a large planned bilateral investment deal with China. With China’s refusal to retract what it termed its “unlimited” strategic partnership with Russia, European countries are expected to take additional steps to cool down their trade relations with China.
Loss of Potential Strategic Partners: The declining public image of China hinders its ability to achieve strategic goals. In democratic nations from the Philippines to Indonesia to Italy, politicians cannot forge closer strategic ties with China once its image becomes negative among their constituents, as this risks inciting voter backlash. For example, although Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte initially pushed hard early in his presidency to build closer links with Beijing and reduce Manila’s reliance on the United States, aggressive Chinese behavior compromised key infrastructure deals and increased unpopularity among the Filipino public, limiting Duterte’s maneuverability.
Establishment of Formal and Informal Alliances Against China: Countries concerned about China’s aggression and growing power are building informal coalitions against China across a range of areas, from semiconductor production control to alliances aimed at preventing major Chinese companies from developing the next generation of wireless technologies, to new types of military relationships designed to restrain Beijing.
The increasing fear of China’s dominance over wireless networks has led the United States to ban Huawei and has compelled many European nations considering allowing the company to establish its broadband cellular systems to pressure it into selecting alternative vendors. Similarly, several Southeast Asian and Pacific countries have chosen fifth-generation network providers from other nations to build their networks.
Limiting China’s Opportunities for Global Leadership: The decline in China’s soft power and its negative image constrain its international influence and global leadership, especially with Xi and other leaders expected to remain in power for years. China’s isolation from many countries in its region has weakened its capacity to lead on issues such as climate change and regional trade integration and has allowed other regional powers, like Japan, to become more active and assume leadership roles. Additionally, China’s internal challenges with Covid-19 suggest that its leadership has become rigid regarding how to devise a pandemic strategy that would allow it to escape closures and isolation.
American Opportunities:
The study suggests that China’s declining global image presents an opportunity for the United States and other democracies to take appropriate measures. They should pursue the following steps to better understand and counter China’s global influence:
Deeper Understanding of Chinese Soft Power: Direct funding towards research focused on Chinese government channels and other media activities to gauge the true extent of China’s reach in the global media and information environment.
Anticipating Chinese Disinformation Campaigns: Highlight China’s growing ties with Russia and its willingness to disseminate disinformation on behalf of the Kremlin.
Targeted Criticism of Xi and the Chinese Communist Party: Ensure that criticisms directed at China are framed in a manner that does not appear directed at the Chinese public.
Capitalizing on Beijing’s Current Unpopularity: Leverage Beijing’s existing unpopularity and political missteps to build new partnerships and deepen existing ones, potentially adding new members in the future. Rebuilding strained defense and strategic relationships with U.S. allies in Southeast Asia, Thailand, and the Philippines is also critical.
Accelerating Efforts to Limit China’s Access to Advanced Technologies: Work to restrict China’s access to crucial advanced technologies such as sophisticated semiconductors and manufacturing equipment. Washington has already initiated efforts in collaboration with Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands.
Ensuring Fair and Vibrant Democracies: Leading democracies should also take steps to ensure their democracies remain fair, free, and vibrant if they hope to offer a clear alternative to the Chinese model, ensure a peaceful transfer of power, provide free and fair voting environments, and maintain legislative bodies capable of passing effective laws, among other things.
Source:
Joshua Kurlantzick, China’s Collapsing Global Image: How Beijing’s Unpopularity Is Undermining Its Strategic, Economic, and Diplomatic Goals, Discussion Paper, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), July 2022.
