Public Attitudes Toward U.S-China Relationship And The Rise Of China

US-China relations is one of today's most influential bilateral relations. This relationship not only influences and shapes the future development of the two respective countries, it also deeply influences how the world. With China's present rise in the world, its relations with the US will have great strategic meaning.Though China's foreign policies are determined by high level officials, China's increasing openness and democratization mean the public's understanding of the US, its valuation of US-China relations, and its approval of the government's US policies deeply impact the direction of China's policies towards the US. With hard work by both sides, high-level leaders have created stable communication and cooperation mechanisms based on consideration of each country's long-term interests. Currently, high-level dialogues are becoming more and more routine and systemized. As such, increasing mutual understanding of the two country's people for each other seems extremely important to the healthy development of the relationship.Out of the many factors which influence US-China relations, this study focuses on the Chinese public attitudes by using surveys and an analysis of survey data as its core research method. More specifically, this study is concerned with providing an objective response to the following questions: how do the Chinese public 1) currently perceive the US? 2) understand US-China relations overall? 3) understand the rise of China? 4) evaluate the government's performance on the international stage? and 5) expect of China's foreign policies in the future?After conducting a literature review and analyzing data from surveys designed and distributed by the author, the author obtained data relevant to answering the above questions. Through ANOVA and other data analysis, the author obtained data on how demographic factors affected perceptions and the similarities in perceptions of people of different demographics.The last part of this paper draws findings from the data, and after summing up the unique aspects of US-China relations, this part discusses the problems in the bilateral relationship. It is hoped that this study may provide the government with some illuminating advice and that it will contribute to future studies on US-China relations and China's foreign policies.