During the years 2010–2012, fewer and fewer people believed that China and the
EU had shared values and interests so that the two sides would be able to cooperate,
suggesting that European common people lacked confidence in China-EU coop-
eration on international issues. However, different countries had somewhat different
feelings since central and eastern European countries generally were more opti-
mistic, while large European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Spain
and Italy, generally lacked confidence.
On the whole, common people in European countries were very“optimistic
about”the prospects of China becoming the leading economic giant and replacing
the USA, and they lacked confidence in future China-EU cooperation on interna-
tional issues.
11.2.13 Summary of the Characteristics of European
Conceptions of China
First, signals from European conceptions of China were relatively pessimistic and
contradictory. Common people in Europe mostly had pessimistic and negative
attitudes, whether regarding their impression of China, or China’s responsibilities or
concerning China as a threat or future China-EU cooperation; these attitudes have
lasted for nearly ten years and so far have not significantly improved. Meanwhile,
common people in Europe have generally been“optimistic about”China’s future
development prospects. This shows that European conceptions of China were
accompanied by contradictions: on the one hand, they were optimistic about
China’s future prospects, on the other hand, they were“pessimistic about”China’s
current situation and lacked confidence in China-EU cooperation.
Second, according to all of the survey data and indicators, most of the indicators
concerning perceptions of China which common people in large European coun-
tries, including the UK, France, Germany and Spain, had bottomed out in 2008 and
then slowly increased. However, this increase was not obvious in some countries,
such as the UK and Germany, where the degree of favorability towards China did
not improve greatly; however, this increase was relatively conspicuous in some
countries, such as Spain and Poland.
Third, among large European countries, including the UK, France, Germany,
Spain and Italy, France and Italy had the most negative views of China on most
issues, followed by Spain and Germany, while the UK had relatively positive views
among large European countries.
Fourth, from the perspective of the regions involved in the survey, Western
European countries (except the UK) were relatively pessimistic, while Central and
Eastern European countries (except Poland, the Czech Republic on some issues)
were relatively positive; Southern European countries had less stable attitudes,
sometimes they had relatively negative views of China, but sometimes they
11 The Europeans’Perception of China 223