China's Rise through World Public Opinion: Editorial Introduction

Abstract

Measuring the perception and attitudes of the world's public toward China has gained new momentum in recent years. In 2009, Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Institute of Arts and Humanities for the first time inaugurated a China-based National Image Survey Project, including a US survey (2010) and 12 Asian countries and regions (2011–2012). Authors in this special issue engage in interpretations and analysis of the data, and one of the most significant lessons is that public opinion, attitudes and perceptions of China's rise are the outcome of dynamic interactions and an assemblage of factors, a synergy of material interests, ideational and emotional reactions, and values, ideologies and principles, unraveling themselves against a highly volatile, precarious and contentious geopolitical backdrop, in which the interests of nation-states and individuals have become intertwined and inseparable.