Why the West is afraid of China but not of the US — RT World News

By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst

The Pew Research Center lately printed a complete survey of 24 international locations relating to their opinions of the US and China. These surveys have been an everyday train, and are good for monitoring shifts in public opinion pertaining to geopolitical competitors between the two international locations.

Of course, the vary of international locations surveyed is comparatively slender, with virtually all being in Europe, or allies of the US, aside from Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and several other international locations in Latin America.

Naturally, other than the latter few, such a variety of international locations returns largely damaging views of China and optimistic perceptions of the US, not least as a result of of America’s personal affect operations on these international locations. However, this explicit survey went deep past mere ‘approve/disapprove’ and explored matters resembling who is perceived as the world’s largest financial energy, who has the strongest navy, and who has the greatest technological items.

Here, the outcomes had been not as decisive as one may assume, with many questions leading to an equilibrium and even placing China forward. While the survey reveals that, naturally, Western nations do not approve of China in ideological or political phrases, it does reveal how the notion of China’s world energy and affect is rising in a manner which provokes nervousness in Washington.

Many Western European nations more and more see China as a bigger financial and technological energy than the US itself and near-equal on navy phrases. However, one problem for China, remarkably highlighted by the survey, is that it continues to path behind the US on gentle energy and cultural affect.

The US continues to have bigger world recognition than China, together with in international locations which are beneficial to China, as a result of it occupies a monopoly over the world cultural and data panorama.

In all international locations all through the world, it doesn’t matter what their political orientation could also be, it is a truth of life that English is the default second language to be taught, if it’s not already an official nationwide language. Through Hollywood motion pictures, tv, and music, the US has unprecedented cultural energy and, with out hiding its nature as a brutal capitalist plutocracy with a historical past of violence, racism, and warmongering, has managed to current itself as a pinnacle of human aspiration and achievement – in different phrases, ‘the American Dream’.

Because of this, the US has been in a position to translate cultural energy into discourse energy, utilizing the media panorama it dominates to export its ideology and promote its political and overseas coverage goals. China, as a rustic solely rising to developed nation standing and with the political construction of a communist state which more and more restricts cultural expression, does not have this functionality, and subsequently struggles to advertise its narrative abroad, even in international locations which have beneficial inclinations in direction of it. This is made clear in the half of the survey which asks which nation has the greatest tradition and leisure, with opinions leaning overwhelmingly in favour of the US.

Yet that has not stopped rising perceptions of China’s energy. The nation’s advance to grow to be the world’s second largest economic system, in addition to changing into an more and more subtle exporter of high-tech items, can not fail to go away a strong impression regardless of any PR shortcomings. It is extraordinary that for all the technological achievements of the US, China is now seen as being forward on this area virtually throughout the board. According to the outcomes, this is a view endorsed by a majority of the public even in the most religious allies of the US, together with Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

There had been of course some holdouts, with South Korea, Japan, and Israel being strongly insistent on American tech primacy, largely as a result of they themselves are high-tech international locations that lean on the US for geopolitical causes to maintain their very own benefits.

Similarly, in navy phrases, with the exceptions of the former, most US allies additionally see Washington and Beijing as close to equal. For instance, in the UK, opinions lean in America’s favour by a mere 4%, and in Germany by simply 1%. This subsequently demonstrates how public opinion has grown to include China as a superpower. However, contemplating the favourability scores talked about above, the challenge Beijing faces is that it is seen as a superpower which is feared slightly than embraced.

We see from the survey that for international locations in Africa and Latin America, resembling Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, the populations of these international locations are completely comfy with China’s rise, they’re not antagonistic to both nation, but for the West and people near the US, this is undoubtedly perceived as a strategic problem. There is an underlying worry that the rise of China will deplete the benefits the West has held for hundreds of years, which implies Beijing’s final strategic goal have to be to reassure these international locations it is not in truth a menace to them, and thus achieve the area of gentle energy.