Showing papers by "Peter Hays Gries published in 2010"

The Olympic Effect on American Attitudes towards China: beyond personality, ideology, and media exposure

Abstract: This paper explores the impact that increased exposure to China during the two and a half weeks of the Beijing Olympics had on American attitudes towards China. A large N longitudinal survey revealed a significant increase in negative attitudes towards China from the beginning to the end of August 2008. Statistical analysis revealed no dominant explanation for this change, however. Instead, personality (openness), ideology (social dominance orientation and right wing authoritarianism), and media exposure each had a small impact on changing attitudes. Further research (including a follow-up experiment manipulating the valence of media coverage of China) suggested both the possibility of an ‘efficiency effect’, whereby China's very success in both hosting and competing in the Olympics generated increased American anxiety about China, and a ‘cheating effect’, whereby stories about underage Chinese gymnasts and deception (e.g. lip synching while another child actually sang during the Opening Ceremonies) diffu...

Chinese Politics: State, Society, and the Market

Abstract: Written by a team of leading China scholars this text interrogates the dynamics of state power and legitimation in 21st Century China. Despite the continuing economic successes and rising international prestige of China there has been increasing social protests over corruption, land seizures, environmental concerns, and homeowner movements. Such political contestation presents an opportunity to explore the changes occurring in China today – what are the goals of political contestation, how are Chinese Communist Party leaders legitimizing their rule, who are the specific actors involved in contesting state legitimacy today and what are the implications of changing state-society relations for the future viability of the People’s Republic? Key subjects covered include: the legitimacy of the Communist Party internet censorship ethnic resistance rural and urban contention nationalism youth culture labour relations. Chinese Politics is an essential read for all students and scholars of contemporary China as well as those interested in the dynamics of political and social change.

Political Orientation, Party Affiliation, and American Attitudes Towards China

Abstract: Little is known about how the political orientations and party affiliations of ordinary Americans impact their perceptions of China. Based on our surveys, we find that partisanship does indeed impact American views of China. Self-reported “conservatives” perceive significantly greater threat in China’s rise, hold more negative views of the Chinese government, exhibit more prejudice towards the Chinese people, and advocate a much tougher U.S. China policy than self-reported “liberals” do. Republicans perceive significantly greater threat from China and advocate tougher China policies than Democrats do, but party affiliation has a lesser impact on prejudice scores. Regression analyses reveals that education, gender, and age each has an impact on American views of China, but that impact is negligible compared to partisanship.

The Spectre of Communism in US China Policy: Bipartisanship in the American Subconscious

Abstract: Recent survey research suggests that, on average, Americans of all political stripes hold more positive attitudes towards the Chinese people than they do towards the Chinese government. This tendency appears more pronounced, however, among Republicans and conservatives, who are significantly more negative about the Chinese government than Democrats and liberals. 1 What best explains these two findings? In the wake of the January 2010 ‘Google Incident’ and the Obama administration’s announcement of continued arms sales to Taiwan, a February 1st People’s Daily Online editorial declared that ‘Cold War thinking’ continues to bias Americans against China. American ideology, it argued, is imbued with a ‘deeply-rooted hostility against and fear of ... communism’. 2 After 30 years of reform and opening, China today is arguably communist in name only. Could it be that communism is nonetheless what best explains American attitudes that are more negative towards the Chinese government than towards the Chinese people? Bipartisan American ambivalence about the Chinese government may stem in part from a common Liberalism, a celebration of individual freedom set against the idea of tyrannies or despotisms of either the left (communism) or right (fascism). Indeed, communism and fascism are often conflated in the American mind as totalitarianism—total state control and total loss of individual liberty.