US-China Conflict over Democracy and the Logic of Hedging in Asian Democracies

• In Event: The US-China Rivalry

Abstract

The Biden administration has framed the US-China rivalry to the broader world as a contest between democracies and autocracies. The assumption behind such a communications strategy is that highlighting regime type will draw other democracies closer to the US. However, it is unclear what the international consequences of this strategy are. What will be the response of other democracies to a world characterized by increasing rivalry between democracies and autocracies? How will the public in vital democratic partners of the US react, if at all?
We show that contrary to conventional wisdom, messages that stress America’s democracy and China’s authoritarianism do not draw the public in third-party democracies closer to the US. We do so by analyzing survey experiments fielded in three nations that are arguably the most important partners of the US in crafting its response to China: India, Japan, and South Korea (hereafter Korea). The PRC is also one of the top trading partners for all three countries, generating strong incentives to maintain good relations with Beijing.
In the three countries, we randomly assign information to survey respondents highlighting differences over democracy in the US-China relationship. We also vary the content of information treatment to compare what effect, if any, disputes regarding security or economic issues in US-China relations would have on public opinion relative to one based on the democracy-autocracy divide. All respondents were then asked about their willingness to cooperate with the US, China, and other regional powers.
The responses in the three countries were consistent with the logic of hedging. Strikingly, all three treatments failed to draw mass opinion in the three democracies closer to the US. Citizens of the two US allies (Korea and Japan) were more likely to decrease their level of support for cooperation with Washington in response to information on the US-China tension over regime type. At the same time, in none of the countries did the public move to support closer cooperation with China in response to any of the treatments. Presented with three different types of disputes between Beijing and Washington, the public in three Asian democracies were reluctant to side with the US – and at time distanced itself from it - while not moving closer to Beijing. While hedging has been studied as state-level behavior, this is the first study to find evidence for it across countries at the mass opinion level.
In accounting for these results, we also present an explanation for why highlighting China’s authoritarian nature may be self-defeating for the US. Recent Chinese responses to US critiques of its anti-democratic nature entail information about problems with US democracy: usually its unequal or racist nature. When such critiques and counter-critiques are presented together, this provides negative information about the US that, for some, is novel. This is particularly the case for citizens in allies of the US that traditionally have held a favorable view of the US and among the lower-information public unfamiliar with US society's domestic problems. Since negative information about China is already prevalent, critiques of China are not as effective. The uneven effect of negative information about each regime functions as a disadvantage for the US.
Our finding points to the need to revisit an assumption in much of the academic literature: given a choice between cooperation with an authoritarian and democratic country in conflict, democracies – and their publics – will gravitate toward the latter. The results also give grounds for skepticism on the pressing policy question of whether drawing the lines of conflict along regime type in responding to China will benefit the US.

Authors

• Joonbum Bae, Colorado State University

• Sijeong Lim, Korea University