Asian views of China in the age of China’s rise: interpreting the results of pew survey and Asian student survey in chronological and comparative perspectives, 2002-2019

ABSTRACT In order to see how Asian countries in this special volume (Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia) are looking at China in chronological and comparative perspectives, using Global Attitudes Survey data conducted by Pew Research Center would be the best way because they cover the data from 2002 to 2019 as of now. We can get a lot of insights on different views of the rise of China in Asia through the analysis of Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Survey data, but there are some inconveniences. Some data in Asian countries are lacking, and the timing of survey is different from one country to another, which makes it difficult to compare the results across the countries. In order to overcome such limitations, this paper uses the second wave and third wave data of Asian Student Survey. Main findings of the analysis are as follows. As of 2018, Singapore and Indonesia were comparatively positively viewing the influence of China, while Vietnam was viewing it negatively, and Japan and South Korea were in-between. The changes in these five years, however, were different from country to country. Changing views of Chinese toward Asian countries were basically symmetrical to those of Asian countries toward China. In these surveyed countries, “peaceful rise frame” was the most powerful determinant of the views of China, which explains why views of China were worsening in these countries. But the concrete determinants of the views were different from one country to another.