The U.S., IMHO, has embarked on a multi-year policy of China containment. The present so-called trade dispute is only the most current of what will be a series of China ‘tail-pulling’ exercises ahead.
Anything then that can shed light on how average men and women on the Chengdu omnibus feel their government should act when threatened is handy. The paper highlighted today from Jessica Chen Weiss of the Cornell University’s Department of Government is an imperfect but useful contribution. Spoiler alert; the news isn’t good.
There’ve been surveys of how ‘patriotic’ Chinese are but Ms. Weiss wants to know how Chinese believe their government should act to secure their interests. The two are not the same. It’s one thing to love your country, another to suggest your government take up arms to defend it.
She’s looked at surveys (five in all) conducted between 2012 and 2016 to see if common threads emerge, and they do. In general (and this is a very big generalization) China’s citizenry are a hawkish lot. They believe their government is right to place a greater reliance on military strength and capability, they approve of increased spending on national defense and they approve of sending troops to reclaim disputed islands if hot conflicts develop.
It gets worse; the young, noisy netizens and the elite are the most hawkish. Given their influence these groups could become a problem for government if sentiment was ever to start to run away from the more centrist tone the Party have tried to maintain in recent years. China wouldn’t be the first country whose leadership found itself fighting a war against their wishes in order to bolster the legitimacy of its rulers.
Bottom line; be anxious. There’s dry tinder here and we live in increasingly belligerent times.
You can access the paper in full via the following link How Hawkish Is the Chinese Public
Er, happy Sunday?