Washington: A new survey shows that American leadership is more respected than China’s in the Asia and Asia-Pacific region.
Among a host of Asian countries that are either members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the East Asia Summit (EAS) group, the United States has a median leadership approval of 44 percent, compared to China, which has a median leadership approval of 30 percent, according to a new Gallup poll.
According to Politico, asked whether they approved of the leadership of the United States, majorities in Cambodia (68 percent), Philippines (63 percent), South Korea (57 percent), and Australia (56 percent) approved of American leadership.
While approval ratings for the US in Thailand (44 percent), Malaysia (38 percent) and Vietnam (21 percent) were lower, they were still higher than the disapproval ratings in each country.
Only in Indonesia and India - 32 percent to 34 percent, 16 percent to 17 percent, respectively – was approval outweighed by disapproval.
In eight of the nine countries polled, more respondents approved of American leadership than Chinese leadership. The greatest gap was in Australia, where at 56 percent the American approval rating was 33 percent higher than the rating for China.
The only country to prefer China’s leadership over American leadership was Vietnam, where 22 percent approved of China and 21 percent approved of the United States.
The Gallup poll was taken in 2011 with 3,518 respondents in India and 1,000 adults in Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, South Korea and Vietnam. The margin of error ranged from a low of plus or minus two percentage points to a high of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
ANI
First Published: Saturday, November 19, 2011, 16:40