The impact of the Covid pandemic on China's image in Central Europe. Similarities and differences in the Visegrad countries

Abstract

The political and economic divide between the West and China has deepened as a result of the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. While large-scale politics and economic relations had less impact on Europeans' perceptions of China, the pandemic affected all segments of society, triggering strong feelings about Beijing. A possible anti-China turn in the EU public opinion could make multilateral cooperation between the two economic giants more difficult, while rising geopolitical tensions could weaken international relations between the two sides. It is therefore important to understand the nature, extent and causes of this switch in sentiments.

Our study is based on a representative international public opinion survey that covered ten Central and Eastern European EU Member States, plus Serbia and Russia, relying on a research questionnaire of 1500 respondents per country and more than 350 items. The aim of our article is to highlight the results of this survey, with a special focus on the Visegrad Four (V4) countries, to gain insights about the evolution of public opinion towards China and to identify the variables that may explain changing perceptions. Our results show that there are no common "Visegrad" variables that significantly influence the perception of China. It is true, however, that in each V4 country there are a few characteristic variables, but in none of the cases are they significant, and when compared regionally, the results are often contradictory.

In our opinion, the openness of the individual CEE countries – including the Visegrad Four – towards China has been influenced in many cases – and to varying degrees – by, for example, previous negative or positive experiences of cooperation with Chinese companies, criticism of EU institutions towards China, security policy or economic considerations, and the more active diplomacy of the United States in the CEE region. As a result of all these processes, there has been a gradual change in perceptions of China in several countries in the CEE region, including the V4, but this has mainly occurred at the government level, while no major pattern emerges at the level of society. It seems that Covid did not have any effect either in this regard. This also means that, although the Visegrad countries are linked historically, politically and have similar economic and geopolitical interests, the perceptions of the V4 societies are often not alike and there is no unified V4 position, especially when it comes to non-European actors and relations with them.