by Western public opinion survey agencies since 2006, the common people in large
European countries had a continuously increasing degree of unfavorability towards
China and became more and more concerned about China’s growing economic and
military strength.
Third, the Chinese travelling around Europe and Chinese populations in Europe
are the most straightforward channels for Europeans to understand China, and they
greatly affect the formation of European conceptions of China. Some Chinese
travelling and emigrating to Europe have given poor impressions to local people,
and some Chinese immigrants were not disciplined and did not obey laws; more-
over, some Chinese tourists have behaved improperly, all of which were criticized
by the Europeans. This was relatively obvious in France, Italy and Spain, all of
which launched special clearance campaigns against Chinese immigrants. Incidents
of violence against the Chinese and against Chinese tourists in France have kept
rising; Italian local governments have investigated and cleared Chinese shops and
factories; Spain has taken special actions to clear the Chinese because they consider
them a sinister gang.
In fact, some subjective factors had a great impact on the formation of European
conceptions of China; to be specific:
First, public opinion surveys seemed just and fair but were highly inducing.
From the standpoint of Chinese scholars, in view of the mode, contents and results
of public opinion surveys in the USA and European countries, one relatively
striking problem in these surveys was that the questions involved were mostly
prompted by Western values. Many Western scholars admitted that public opinion
surveys aimed at collecting public opinions but also shaping public opinions to
some extent. China-related surveys conducted by American and European public
opinion survey agencies showed that the design of the questionnaires mostly
concentrated on some negative questions about the rise of China, and so the results
they produced also tended to be negative.
In Western countries, the public opinion survey is defined as“precision news”;
though“precision”is sought, it is also“news”and must provide questions which
draw attention. Thus, public opinion survey agencies conducted surveys on
emergencies or hot issues in China. Generally, the questionnaires had more“neg-
ative”questions than”positive”ones; thus the conclusions drawn by Western public
opinion survey agencies were certainly“subjective”, and even somewhat“nega-
tive”. For example, issues raised by Western media according to surveys—“China
threat outstrips US threat”,“China is the greatest threat for global stability”and
“China is the largest polluter in the world”, etc. had a huge impact on Western
countries and China, and also enjoyed high media exposure.
Second, the USA exerted an important impact on shaping European conceptions
of China. Specifically, (1) China-related public opinion surveys were mostly led by
public opinion survey agencies with an American background and so mirrored the
strategic intent of the United States to some extent. Driven by public opinion
surveys, conceptions of China in the area of public opinion were developed aligned
with the strategic intent of the United States. Meanwhile, European public opinion
survey agencies had no special intention and interests in surveys on China.
11 The Europeans’Perception of China 225