Public Opinion and China's Strategic Communication: Responses to Coercion and Persuasion

Abstract How publics respond to foreign state communications is an important yet relatively unexplored aspect of public diplomacy. In this article we examine the effectiveness of foreign state influence strategies, examining how messaging affects public attitudes to a specific policy issue—in this case, whether China should be permitted to invest in nuclear power infrastructure in the United Kingdom. Deriving a range of arguments from official Chinese news articles we use a survey experiment to test whether foreign publics react differently to coercive and persuasive messages, whether perceptions of threat or economic dependence affect responses, and whether counter-coercion by close and powerful allies can moderate the effect of China's messaging. Our findings show that perceptions of security threat are a significant impediment to strategic messaging, with even gentle persuasion generating a backlash, shifting public views against the messaging state's position.