Cuatro formas de percibir a China desde América Latina: análisis de clústeres de la composición de la opinión pública de la region

Objective/Context: The economic, political and military relations between the People’s Republic of China and Latin America have grown exponentially since the beginning of the 21st century. In this context, this article questions how the perception of Latin American citizens about China varies, taking into account its commercial, military and political dimensions. To answer this question, it is proposed that according to the theory of social identity, the perception towards China will be homogeneous, while from the individualist theories of public opinion a greater heterogeneity is expected in the perception of Latin Americans towards the Asian giant. Methodology: Data from the 2020 Latinobarómetro survey were used to estimate a cluster analysis to identify the different types of political, commercial and military perception of Latin American citizens towards China and a multinomial regression analysis to identify political and sociodemographic factors. related to each profile. Conclusions: The analysis found evidence in favor of the individualistic theories of public opinion, identifying four groups, one with a favorable perception of China in the three dimensions evaluated, another with a favorable perception, less so in the military dimension, and another two groups that did not. have a favorable perception of China. This study also shows that Latin Americans who do not support democracy are more likely to belong to groups with a low perception of China. Originality: The analysis of clusters is a novel methodology in the study of the perception of Latin Americans about China, as well as analyzing the perception of China as a multidimensional phenomenon and not only analyzing the favorability towards that country.