Despite the difficulties of conducting public opinion research in China, there have been quite a few polls exploring how the Chinese people see themselves in the global context, how they perceive the U.S. and its relationship with China, and how they view the Taiwan issue and its relevance to China’s quest for modernization. In presenting these findings, Dr. Yawei Liu tries to examine the complicated dynamics of public opinion and decision-making in a non-democratic country and if views held by the Chinese people will shape the future of China and its interaction with the world.
Yawei Liu, Ph.D., is the senior advisor on China at The Carter Center and an adjunct professor of political science at Emory University. An expert on U.S.-China relations and Chinese grassroots democracy, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the associate director of the China Research Center in Atlanta. He is regularly invited to speak about Chinese public opinion, and his previous engagements include the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Brookings Institution, the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute for China-America Studies.