The Global Times created on Monday an online survey on its Chinese website and social media networks regarding current China-US relations. The number of participants in the survey has been recorded at 146,196 by Tuesday afternoon. The survey included six questions covering judgments of US intentions to provoke China and the approaches that the country should adopt to retaliate against the US, as well as general thoughts about the US from the perspective of a Chinese.
The survey results show that most Chinese netizens believe that the most recent sanctions implemented by the Trump administration against several Chinese officials due to the national security law for Hong Kong are only just bluffing to serve the US presidential election campaign and almost no one believes such moves are about democracy or freedom.
The US imposed sanctions on 11 officials on Friday, including Carrie Lam, chief executive of the HKSAR; Luo Huining, director of the central government's liaison office in the HKSAR; and Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council. China on Monday retaliated in sanctioning 11 US politicians and heads of US NGOs who were involved in damaging China's national security in Hong Kong.
More than 75 percent of participants think that such US moves are an act of interference in China's domestic and another 20.3 percent of participants believe that the Trump administration is only bluffing China to get itself reelected. Only 2.7 percent of web users believe that the US is doing this to support "democracy and freedom of Hong Kong."
Chinese experts said that such results show Chinese people have overwhelmingly not been intimidated by US sanctions and provocations at all, and almost no one believes the US really cares about freedom and democracy in China, as it's all about hegemony and anxieties regarding the failing US strategy to contain China.
Following the questions, the survey asked "The US has frequently put pressure on China in recent times. What does this show about the intentions of the US?"
About 45 percent voted for "anxiety about China's rapid development, trying to suppress further progress by China" and 51.3 percent voted for "A hegemonic mentality with anxieties over the decline of US competitiveness." Only 2.1 percent believed the US has concerns "over democracy and human rights in China".
Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday that most Chinese people have a very clear understanding of the US policy toward China, and many of them share consensus on judging the US intentions behind a series of hostile provocations.
"Almost no one in China believes the US cares about democracy or human rights in our country, as the US has already proven itself to be 'a trouble maker' who destroys other nations' sovereignty and previously created a series of failed states with the excuse of 'promoting democracy and defending human rights', Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria are all examples," he said.
Such consensus among the Chinese public has also transformed into overwhelming support for the Chinese government to toughly retaliate against US provocations. But such support is based on reasonable and cool-headed thinking regarding China's most fundamental interests, rather than merely guided by nationalism and protectionism, as experts noted that the Chinese society is much more mature than the US on viewing the current tensions.
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