China-EU_Relations_Reassessing_the_China-EU_Comprehensive_Strategic_Partnership

10.5 Views of the Chinese Common People Concerning

the Current Situation and Prospects for China-EU

Relations

Relevant surveys on the current situation of bilateral relations were conducted by
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2007, 2008 and 2010, but the methods
of the specific surveys were different; the Author has made rough comparisons (see
Tables10.6and10.7).
The question“To what extent do you think China-EU relations are important?”
was raised in the 2007 survey; the question“To what extent do you think the
following bilateral relations are important for China?”was raised in the 2008
survey; an evaluation of important bilateral relations as seen by the Chinese
common people was conducted in the 2010 survey. Generally, there were many
more respondents who had positive views than those who had negative views in the
three surveys. Respondents who believed that China-EU relations were “very
important”and“relatively important”in 2007 were more than those in the other two
surveys. Furthermore, fewer and fewer respondents believed that China-EU rela-
tions were“very important”or had“very great”influence because on the one hand,
the 2007 survey put more emphasis on groups involved in EU affairs, on the other
hand, the following possibility is not excluded: the course of China-EU relations
has affected public perceptions of bilateral relations, and their perceptions of the
weight of bilateral relations have been on a downward trend since 2007.
With respect to views about the prospects for China-EU relations, the proportion
of those who chose“very optimistic”decreased noticeably year by year, while the
proportion of those who chose“cautiously optimistic”increased compared with
2007, 2008 and 2010, and more than half of the respondents took a“cautiously

Table 10.6 The Chinese common people’s evaluation of the importance of China-EU relations
among bilateral relations in the period 2007–2008 (Unit%)

Year Very important Relatively important Less important Not important at all

2008 43.2 48.6 7.1 1.0

2007 54.4 40.4 4.4 0.8

Table 10.7 The Chinese common people’s evaluation of the importance of different bilateral
relations in 2010 (Unit%)

Very

great

Relatively

great

Fair Less

influential

No

influence

No

response

Russia 42.09 37.26 15.53 1.00 0.67 3.45

The

USA

57.88 29.90 7.65 0.78 0.52 3.27

The EU 33.06 42.90 15.57 1.75 0.74 3.97

Japan 24.78 34.14 27.15 6.24 3.49 4.20

10 The Chinese Perception of the EU 193