Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/179275 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper Series No. 646
Publisher: 
University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
One goal of China's Go Out policy is to create goodwill in countries around the world. At the same time, China's growing economic engagement has provoked much criticism. This paper is the first to study whether these activities change the attitudes of individuals in developing countries towards China at both the national and subnational level. Using repeated cross-sectional survey data from the Latinobarómetro, we analyze whether and how growing amounts of exports, foreign aid, and foreign direct investment from China to Latin America affect opinions on China within 18 Latin American countries over the 2002-2013 period. We run instrumental-variables regressions by exploiting exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese exports, aid, and investment proxied by China's market penetration of developing countries outside Latin America. In contrast to the widespread criticism, we do not find evidence that China's growing economic activities in the respective countries deteriorate average attitudes towards China - neither at the national nor the provincial level. However, our results show that the young, educated, and economically privileged population develops more positive views of China. We interpret this as evidence that China's economic engagement creates winners and losers.
Subjects: 
public opinion
exports
development assistance
foreign direct investment
China
Latin America
anti-Sinicism
soft power
JEL: 
F14
F15
F21
F35
F61
O54
P33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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