What do Chinese people really think of the Party and Xi

The White Paper protests, which spread across China in 2022, were triggered by the death of 10 people during a fire in a quarantined apartment building in Urumqi. The protests reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the Chinese government’s Covid-19 policies.

It forced observers of politics to question whether China’s Communist Party, or CCP, really enjoys widespread popular support.

In contrast with the majority of protests in the country driven by discontent with local officials, the White Paper demonstrations offered critiques of the central government and the Party’s rule more generally.

The CCP’s legitimacy rests on achievements in developing the economy and reducing poverty, maintaining social stability through censorship and repression, and, increasingly, promoting a nationalist vision of China’s future.

It all depends to a great extent on public perceptions of the regime.

Popular political attitudes in the country have shaped the Party’s domestic stability and constrained its foreign policy decisions. These pillars of CCP legitimacy appear to be shifting beneath the regime’s monolithic facade. The White Paper protests did that.

Public opinion

Whether due to China’s slowing economy, the concentration of power under Xi Jinping, or the heavy-handedness of the country’s Covid-19 response, researchers and policymakers need to analyze these changes or risk misunderstanding state-society dynamics.

The most common tool applied to gauge public opinion is a direct survey, in which respondents are asked about their attitudes toward the Chinese government.

One prominent study, published by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at Harvard University, has traced popular attitudes toward the regime since 2003.

Their surveys place CCP support above 90%, suggesting that favorable views of the Chinese government are as ubiquitous as Party propaganda might suggest.

These results have been covered by China Central Television, Xinhua, China Global Television Network, China Daily, and other CCP propaganda outlets. They have become part of the state’s efforts to substantiate its legitimacy – at home and abroad.

But does the Communist Party really enjoy such widespread support? Or do survey respondents conceal their opposition to the regime due to the threat of repression? And if so, what share of Chinese citizens really support the CCP?

To answer these questions, we employed a survey technique known as a list experiment. Respondents are provided with a short list of nonsensitive statements, such as ‘I consider myself a sports fan’, and are asked to tally up the number of statements they agree with.

Respondents were randomly assigned to either a control group or a treatment group. ‘Treated individuals’ received an additional sensitive statement, such as ‘I support comrade Xi Jinping’ or ‘the CCP government works for the people’.

The results, which were published in The China Quarterly, reveal widespread preference falsification. With direct questions, individuals reported their support for Xi, the CCP and the Chinese government at rates similar to those found in prior direct survey research.

Survey waves

With list experiments, support for the regime dropped to between 50 to 70%.

Since list experiments may not fully remove respondents’ concerns about online surveillance, those taking part were more willing to express opposition to ‘the system of government’ than to Xi or the CCP directly.

Across questions and survey waves, support for the regime varied across key characteristics:

•  Ethnic Han respondents supported Xi about 20 percentage points more than minority respondents. 
• College-educated respondents were between 10 to 20 percentage points more supportive of the CCP than respondents who completed early middle school.
• This may be because the CCP’s efforts to shape educational curricula have succeeded, or because college-educated Han perform considerably better in the labor market.
• CCP members are about 10 percentage points more supportive of the regime. This makes sense since they elected to join the Party and benefit from its rents.

The difference between regime support under direct questioning and regime support under list experiments is known as the preference falsification rate. The survey experiments reveal a preference falsification rate in Xi’s China of around 25 percentage points.

A recent meta-analysis examined all known list experiments in autocratic contexts and found an average preference falsification rate of around 14 percentage points.

This makes Xi’s China a clear outlier. It also demonstrates that Chinese citizens are far more fearful of expressing opposition to the regime.

These results suggest one should be skeptical about public opinion surveys in China that rely on direct questioning. The CCP’s internal security apparatus compels citizens to engage in widespread self-censorship, nearly three times higher than in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The pervasiveness of self-censorship has overstated the amount of legitimacy that the CCP enjoys. Conventional wisdom goes that it is based on a record of economic growth, and a propaganda and censorship apparatus that persuades citizens of the regime’s merits.

Widespread frustration

The results, most broadly, suggest the CCP confronts widespread frustration. Its recent policies, including the increase in repression and saber-rattling over Taiwan, should be seen as an effort to contain this frustration.

Erin Baggott Carter is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.

Brett L Carter is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.

Stephen Schick is a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California.

This article is republished from East Asia Forum under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.