OPINION: The panda on our eyelids: How Indonesians view China
The Jakarta Post, 13 August 2011 The Pew Global Attitudes Survey released in mid-July reported on the views of a 1,000 Indonesians on China in comparison to the US. To be clear, detailed datasets have not been released to the public. At the risk of oversimplifying things, let’s toy with the available information. A majority of respondents in 15 of the 22 nations surveyed said China had either already replaced or would replace the US. However, only 8 percent of Indonesian respondents said that China replaced the US, 25 percent said China would do so and 46 percent said that China would never replace the US. While most respondents viewed the US more favorably than China, Indonesian respondents answered differently. The US’ favorability in the eyes of Indonesian respondents went down slightly from last year from 59 percent to 54 percent, while the number of respondents with a favorable view of China increased from 58 percent to 67 percent. More Indonesian respondents said an inc