Question

Public opinion in china (whether the people are happy or unhappy with the present form of government)

Answer 1

Answer:

China’s foreign policy. For example, analysts inside and outside China have attributed Beijing’s rising assertiveness in international relations in part to the need of the government to cater to rising nationalism at home. The logic of many of these analysts is that expressions of Chinese nationalism are becoming increasingly vocal and frequent, and that Beijing has to stand up against “hostile foreign forces” or it will lose legitimacy in the eyes of its own citizens. Ample cases of this dynamic have been identified, including the government’s hawkish response to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, controversies with Japan over the waters around the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands, and, more recently, China’s “aggressive” behavior against Southeast Asian claimants to areas of the South China Sea. More often than ever, especially in private conversations, Chinese officials and scholars seem to play the public opinion card to justify externally unpopular foreign policy moves.

Such arguments seem reasonable at first glance. Public opinion, or, what is understood to be the will of the majority of the polity or at least a substantial element of it, can be a very powerful determinant of a country’s foreign policy. In democratic countries, governments have to respect public opinion: failure to do so can be very politically expensive. However, in a country like China, where the government has critical means to shape public opinion but in which the public has relatively limited means to express their political opinions, one must carefully examine the relationship between foreign policy and public opinion to determine the extent to which public opinion influences foreign policy decisions―or whether it is created or at least shaped by the government to advance a political or policy agenda.