Support for government in China: is the data accurate?

Some have questioned the survey results. Are the skeptics right?

A wide range of public opinion surveys and studies over the past years have demonstrated that people in China tend to express strikingly strong support for their government and their political-economic system, much higher than in most other countries.

For instance, the World Values Survey consistently shows that over 90% of people in China report “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in the national government. In 2018, the most recent wave, trust was at 94.6%, one of the highest levels in the world. This result is supported by the Asian Barometer Survey, which in 2015 found 86.7% of respondents in China had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in the national government.

Similarly, Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance has conducted regular surveys on public opinion in China since 2003. It finds that, in the most recent year of data, satisfaction with the national government stood at 93%, having generally increased over time. Satisfaction with provincial governments was also high at 82%.

Next, the Danish NGO Alliance for Democracies publishes data on people’s perceptions of their political systems in over 50 countries. According to the most recent report (2024), people in China have positive views of their political system, with 91% saying that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% saying all people enjoy equal rights before the law, much higher than in the US, France and Britain.

Finally, a recent study published in the journal Political Psychology asked people in 42 countries whether they think their system is fair and just. They used the following questions: “In general, I find society to be fair”, “In general my country’s political system operates as it should”, “Everyone in my country has a fair shot at wealth and happiness”, and “My country’s society is set up so that people usually get what they deserve.” The results show that people in China are more likely to agree with these statements than any other country in the set.

These are all remarkable results. But skeptics have questioned the data, saying that respondents may overstate support for their government if they live in a system where they are likely to fear repression for expressing political dissent. In behavioural psychology, this is known as “strategic misreporting”. The Alliance for Democracies study is designed to avoid this bias, but other studies may be more vulnerable.

So, are the skeptics right?

Researchers have responded by assessing this question empirically. One way to exclude bias from strategic misreporting is to use indirect questioning techniques called “list experiments” that guarantee people cannot be associated with their responses. This approach is used in cases where people may self-censor when asked about socially or politically sensitive topics. A meta-analysis found that when this method is used, people tend to report lower levels of support for government compared to direct questioning.

Several list experiment studies have been conducted in China. Wenfang Tang (2016) embedded this approach in a World Values Survey for 2013 and found slightly lower levels of trust in national government (by -4 percentage points). If this discrepancy holds for the 2018 World Value Survey results, it would imply that trust in national government is still high at 90%.

However, some limitations in that study inspired researchers to carry out a series of more robust list experiment studies. Using more advanced methods, Li, Shi, and Zhu (2018) found that trust in national leaders is 62%. Robinson and Tannenberg (2019) found that confidence in national government is 66%. Nicholson and Huang (2022) found 77% support for central government and 67% support for local government. Finally, Carter, Carter and Schick (2024) found that 65-70% of people support Xi Jinping, and about 65% agree the government works for the people and is responsive.

While the list experiment results are lower than what we see in direct questioning, they still indicate high levels of popular support, at around 62-77%. This is much higher than the levels of support for government we see in the United States (33%), France (31%) and Britain (29%), according to the most recent World Value Survey results. And it is higher even than what we see in the Scandinavian countries, which otherwise enjoy among the highest results in the world: Denmark (39%), Finland (42%), Norway (59%), Sweden (51%).

List experiments have their own problems, however: researchers have found that because the questioning technique is more complicated, it introduces unintended reporting errors that may even outstrip errors from strategic misreporting. In other words, it may be that simpler direct questioning methods produce more accurate results.

An alternative technique to avoid strategic misreporting is to use Implicit Association Tests, assessing people’s implicit trust in government rather than relying on explicit statements. Implementing this approach in a study on China, Huang, Intawan and Nicholson (2022) find that implicit trust levels are similar to explicit trust, indicating that high reported trust in China is not due to political fear or social desirability. They conclude: “the Chinese public’s trust in its government is largely genuine… both their implicit and explicit responses about government are largely trustful.”

Their paper also describes interesting results of other relevant studies:

“Lei and Lu (2017) randomly assigned participants to either a standard face-to-face interview (control) or a treatment wherein participants were told the survey was sponsored by the CPC, the expectation being that people would be less forthcoming in expressing distrust in the latter case. Yet participants in the CPC treatment did not exhibit a significantly higher non-response rate nor report higher trust in China’s political system than participants in the (normal interviewer) control condition.”

And, “Drawing on affect transfer theory, Stockmann, Esarey and Zhang (2018) found no evidence that priming participants with the central government produced a fearful response in evaluations of a non-political advertisement.”

In other words, people in China do not seem to self-censor based on fear. The authors conclude: “Across a variety of studies using different methodologies, a good deal of evidence suggests that the Chinese people are willing to answer politically sensitive questions in a truthful manner.”

As I am always at pains to point out, none of this is to say that China does not have problems and internal contradictions that must be overcome. It does, just as all countries do. But these studies point to an important reality that we must grapple with: the Chinese people have a much higher regard for their government, and much higher support for their political and economic system, than people in the West tend to assume.