An Analysis Of Changes On Public Opinion Of Korea Towards China (2005-2011)

The main focus of this thesis is the public opinionsof two countries inNortheast Asia–Republic of Korea and People’s Republic of China. Therelationship between these two countries has become closer than ever before,but research about their respectivepublic opinionsis insufficeient. In Koreansociety, it is common for a small accident to become a big public reaction;therefore, the influence of public opinion is bigger than other countries.Thisthesis analyzes the changes and causes of public opinion in Korea about China,and the research time frame is from2005until2011. How much has the publicopinion in Korea about China changed, and if opinion has not remained positiveor negative, what are the causes of this change? Which case has a more powerfulinfluence:soft power or hard power? This is the main question of this thesis.Korea East Asia Institute (EAI) has close cooperation with the one of theworld’s biggest public opinion research center, Globescan, and the famousbroadcast company British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). From2005untilnow these two organizations every year hasconducted public opinion pollscalled the “Global poll international research series”. Every year in Julyresearch begins and results are announced at February of next year. This thesisuses the result of EAI research and a secondary literature analyzing method.When the research started, the result of public opinion is positive48%, negative47%,therefore this gap is not that big. In every case, the negative opinionfloating size is bigger than positive opinion. In the five cases of the entireresearch period, negative opinion changed more than10%, but the case ofpositive opinion changed more than10%only one time; neutral opinionchangedtwo times. In every research result, neutral opinion had the smallest partand floating is comparatively big. For example, in2006only5%, but in2007suddenly raised up to20%, and2008fell down to around10%.This thesis analyzes the main cause from2005to2006for the Northeastproject of China. In the period between2006and2007the main analysis is onChina’s achievement of becoming the biggest import country for Korea. From2007to2008it is Six-PartyTalks related with nuclear weapons problem of North Korea. From2008to2009the one cause is building the mutual strategiccooperative relationship between Korea and China, as well as the2008BeijingOlympic. Between2009and2010, the main object is the sinking of CheonanNavy ship issue. Lastly, from2010to2011the main analysis causes are theshelling of Yeonpyeong Island and2010Shanghai World Expo. In the publicopinion poll result, negative opinion rose more than10%after the Northeastproject of China, Beijing Olympic, and Shanghai Expo. Despite the influence ofHard power, Soft power of China is still a powerful ’cultural attraction’ inKorean society. Howeverthis also means that there is a high level of distrustabout Chinese soft power. On the contrary to this, the growth of economicrelations leads to neutral opinion, not positive opinion.When examining the relationship between soft power and the reasons forrising negative opinion, this thesis argues that the reason for the ’China ThreatTheory’ is not economic causes, but rather from Chinese Soft power and Sinocentrism because of soft power growth. In order to change this negative publicopinion and distrust between Koreans and Chinese, the two governmentsmustchange their soft power strategies in the future. The final goal of this thesis is toaccurately representpublic opinion,positively influence negative opinion, andsuccessfullydevelop closer relations between Korea and China.