Meanwhile, while 52 percent of the American public believe China is a major threat, among the elites, only minorities said that. “America’s public and elites generally viewed China’s emergence as a world power as a far less serious threat to the well-being of the United States than other enumerated threats, such as international financial instability, Iran’s nuclear program, Islamic extremism, and North Korea’s nuclear program,” concludes the survey.
When it comes to mutual impressions, it is clear that Chinese view Americans far more negatively than vice versa. Majorities of the Chinese public describe Americans as aggressive, competitive, violent, arrogant, and greedy (in declining order of percentages), while only minorities of Americans say that about Chinese. (Minorities of Chinese describe themselves with those terms; While 50 percent of Chinese say Americans are selfish, 51 percent believe that about themselves as well.)
So what are the adjectives most Americans use when describing Chinese? Hardworking was number one with 93 percent, followed by competitive, nationalistic and modern. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Americans see their fellow citizens as diligent, and clear majorities “viewed American people as being modern, inventive, generous, tolerant, honest, and sophisticated. In each case, lower percentages of the U.S. public ascribed those same traits to Chinese people,” says the survey. (On the other hand, Americans proved critical of themselves, with majorities using the same negative characteristics cited by the Chinese, in describing themselves.)
The survey is hardly all depressing reading. A couple of good signs: in both countries, young people and scholars showed slightly higher levels of mutual trust. And “despite this general lack of mutual trust, a majority of the public in both countries thought U.S.-China relations were “good,” the survey says.
Article Appeared @http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-12/guess-what-the-u-dot-s-dot-and-china-don-t-trust-each-other-much