Brother Geng Zhi
On June 7, local time, The European Council on Foreign Relations released the results of a poll for respondents in 11 European countries.
The poll, which asked respondents from 11 countries about their views on Russia, the United States and China, is likely to be embarrassing for the United States.
This is because even if the United States desperately wants to win Europe to confront China, and constantly uses the situation in Russia and Ukraine to arch the fire, even if the United States still has a large number of "mouthpieces" in Europe to promote and advocate the geopolitical interests of the United States, the attitude of the European people is quite subtle.
For example, when asked how they viewed the United States, the vast majority of respondents from Bulgaria and Austria to France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden believed that the United States was important to Europe, with more than three-in-ten people simply believing that the United States was an ally with "common interests and values" and four percent as a "necessary partner."
Moreover, when asked about their views on Russia, with the exception of Bulgaria, the majority of respondents in the other 10 European countries expressed a clear hostility towards Russia, all of which exceeded 50%.
This seems to show that the United States has done a good job of influence and propaganda in Europe.
However, when asked about their views on China as a competitor of the United States, not only did not reach half of the 11 countries, except for Sweden, which saw China as an adversary, but the average opinion of these 11 countries showed that nearly half of the people also saw China as a "necessary partner" or even an ally.
What's even more interesting is that the proportion of respondents who see China as a "necessary partner" is as high as that of the United States, at more than 40%. Among them, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain have more than 50% of the respondents who believe that China is a partner or even an ally. The Netherlands and Austria also reached almost 50%.
Also worth mentioning here is the 20% or so public opinion that "doesn't know" what China really means for Europe – because it's really an "open space," a space to work and fight for.
However, it is not only this point that embarrasses the United States.
As the chart below shows, while nearly eighty percent of Europeans believe that the United States is important to Europe, six-in-ten European respondents do not intend to take sides in the conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, but prefer to remain neutral – even those who are willing to support the United States are just over two-in-ten.
Therefore, the European Association for Foreign Relations has to admit that it seems that the European public is more on the side of French President Emmanuel Macron, does not believe that China is trying to harm European power, and does not buy the "democracy vs. autocracy" rhetoric promoted by the United States - and even if China and Russia have good relations, this has not affected the attitude of most Europeans to consider China to be Europe's "necessary partner".
However, the two senior analysts who wrote the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations do not seem to want such a public opinion to continue, but rather want to make Europeans more accepting of the United States, more hostile to Russia, and keep China away from Europe.
The two also elaborated on suggestions on how to keep Europe "away" from China, such as making Europeans aware of the importance of the US-EU alliance through propaganda, making Europeans understand that if they want to defend "human rights and democracy", they must not get too close to China, and let them understand that they cannot remain neutral in the Sino-US conflict, but can only support the United States, otherwise there will be consequences.
So, while this latest poll is positive for China and depressing for the United States, the competition between China and the United States in Europe will continue.