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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 11/03
The Correlates of Nationalism In Beijing Public Opinion
Alastair Iain Johnston
Paper #50
September 2003
Abstract
In the past public opinion has never really been an important issue in Chinese foreign policy studies for obvious reasons. China, after all, is not a country where voters can recall poorly performing political leaders. Foreign policy is still one of the most sensitive public policy issues where unapproved or sharp public dissent and criticism can be politically risky. And the Chinese political system is still a dictatorship.
Yet in recent years there has been more talk from both outside observers and Chinese analysts about the constraints that public opinion - meaning at its simplest the opinions of some representative sample of the entire politically aware population -- places on Chinese leaders.
Moreover, there is evidence that the Chinese leadership is increasingly sensitive to and/or constrained by the opinion of "attentive publics" (primarily urban political, economic and military elites) on issues running from Taiwan to Japanese reparations to the treatment of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen suggest that public intellectuals in particular have a growing impact on foreign policy making through opportunities for consulting with relevant bureaucracies, through high profile writing in an increasingly commercialized press, and through efforts to mobilize broader sectors of the public whose views may then be reflected in public opinion polling by the state or Party (though they do no address mobilization on foreign policy issues per se).
