Minxin Pei: Chinese Perceptions of the United States
The Asia edition of TIME magazine has just published an article on What China Really Thinks of the U.S. ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's meeting with President Bush on Thursday. I thought Minxin Pei's comments have very well captured Chinese sentiments on America.
"Chinese perceptions of the United States are deeply ambivalent," says Minxin Pei, China program director at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They mix resentment and admiration, fear with respect, jealousy with the desire to emulate." So long as that volatile mixture constitutes a central, "brittle part of the national psyche," says Pei, there's always the possibility that these emotions will boil over.
