as the actor with the second greatest influence, which was 59.2 %. Although the EU
is currently ranked No. 1 in the world in terms of GDP aggregate, most of theélites
believed that being ranked No. 1 in terms of aggregate did not mean being ranked
No. 1 in terms of actual influence. The EU still lagged behind the USA in terms of
influence. Meanwhile, although China’s economy had grown very rapidly and
China’sinfluence was increasing, China still lagged behind the EU in terms of
influence (see Table10.12).
On the whole, with regard to the evaluation of the EU's role and influence, the
élites had a relatively objective evaluation of the EU and also had a some what
positive attitude towards the EU. In the survey on the actor with the greatest
international political and economic influences, the Chineseélites believed that the
EU was the actor second only to the USA and was stronger than China in terms of
these two indicators.
10.8 The Chinese Elites’Views on the Current Situation
and the Prospects for China-EU Relations
As shown in Table10.13, compared with 2007, those who believed that China-EU
relations were“very good”and“fair”significantly decreased, while those who
believed that China-EU relations were“not very good”and“very poor”signifi-
cantly increased. This shows that theélites believed that China-EU relations had
actually worsened in the period 2007–2010.
According to the 2010 survey, most of theélites had a“cautiously optimistic”
attitude, accounting for 66.8 %, followed by those who had a“neutral”attitude,
Table 10.12 The Chineseélites’evaluation of the EU’s international economic influence in 2010
(Unit%)
The USA The EU Japan Russia China
Actor with the greatest influence 94.6 1.9 0.5 0.1 2.5
Actor with the second greatest influence 3 59.2 12.2 2.2 22.8
Actor with the third greatest influence 1.3 26.7 26.3 4.4 39.4
SourceBased on data from the EU’s 7th Framework Programme in 2010
Table 10.13 Theélites’
views on the current
China-EU relations (Unit%)
2007 2010 2007 2010
Very good 9.0 0.6 Very poor 0.2 0.3
Fair 78.9 57.8 Unknown 3.4 13.4
Not very good 6.3 27.8
NoteCompared with the data in the 2007 survey from the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Source: Based on data from the EU’s 7th Framework Programme
in 2010196 L. Zuokui