China Daily reported on a story yesterday stating that Chinese President Xi Jinping “is the highest-rated world leader in many fields,” claiming to be based on a recent survey that asks citizens from 30 countries for their views on 10 influential national leaders who have global impact.
In the survey, published by Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, found that the responses are influenced by geopolitics, which explains reater awareness of Xi among respondents in Asia. However, surprisingly, only 48.8 percent of Russian respondents and 59.8 percent of Vietnamese respondents were aware of him, despite the attempts to build a close relationship between China and Russia and the tensions that have existed between China and Vietnam.
According to the data gathered by the researcher, citizens of countries where the media tends to be government-dominated (he’s talking about you, China Daily) unsurprisingly pay more attention to their own leaders. Thus, 93.3 percent of Chinese respondents claim to pay attention to Xi, and 92.5 percent for both South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Only 74.4 percent of US respondents state they pay attention to President Obama, while percentages for countries in western Europe are even lower.
While the China Daily report boasts of Xi’s rating of 9 from citizens of the country on the 1-10 scale — the highest among all 10 leaders — it left out an important (though somewhat obvious) finding of the study: that there is a correlation between political systems and the ratings of their own leaders by respondents. In countries where discussion of leaders is more constrained, the national leader rate very highly (Putin takes the second place with a rating of 8.7); whereas in countries where the press is more open and critical, leaders receive lower ratings from their citizens (with President Obama scoring 6.2).
Despite the good news delivered by China Daily that the Chinese president received the highest average score when rated by citizens of other countries, he does not fare too well in Europe, with five of the six countries polled giving him ratings below 6.
President Xi ranked second for confidence in both his handling of domestic and foreeign affairs.
The survey also indicated that appreciation ratings and awareness of President Xi both rise 10 percent for those countries that he has visited. So maybe President Xi Jinping should drop everything right now and take Peng Liyuan on a world tour.
Although the survey does not reveal the sample size nor the percentage of respondents polled in each of the 30 countries, it does include a list of the countries surveyed, among which 12 are in Asia. Considering the correlation between geopolitical factors and people’s views towards national leaders, we are assuming the results of this survey are probably not as representative as government mouthpieces would have it.
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