3.The role of a major power

Very low percentages of the U.S. public and American elites thought the United States should be the single world leader. Similarly low shares of China’s public and elites felt that China should be the single world leader. However, strong majorities of the elites from both the United States and China felt that their own country should play a shared global leadership role. While 74 percent of the U.S. public shared this attitude, only 45 percent of the Chinese public did. In partial contrast, among those Chinese who felt Beijing should play a shared leadership role in the world, a strong majority of both China’s elites and the general public said China should be neither more nor less assertive than other leading nations.

Clear majorities in every U.S. elite category believed that global stability is best served by American dominance. Not a single U.S. elite respondent favored China replacing America as the leading superpower. Nonetheless, sizeable minorities of America’s elites (including as high as 45 percent of business executives) favored a balance of power between the United States and China.

Strong majorities of China’s public and elites identified the United States as the country that posed the greatest threat to China, ranging from 63 percent among the public to 81 percent among business executives. America’s public and its elites generally viewed China’s emergence as a world power as a far less serious threat to the well-being of the United States than other enumerated threats, such as international financial instability, Iran’s nuclear program, Islamic extremism, and North Korea’s nuclear program.

　
4.Challenges in bilateral relations

The majority of American elites surveyed prioritized building a strong U.S.-China relationship above all else. Clear majorities of the U.S. public stressed the importance of being tough with China on economic and trade issues (56 percent); building a strong relationship with China (55 percent); and promoting human rights (53 percent). Much smaller percentages of the U.S. public said the same about advocating more freedom for Tibet (36 percent) and continuing to sell arms to Taiwan (21 percent).

Certain economic issues were also mentioned as priorities by U.S. the elite groups—especially protecting intellectual property, improving cybersecurity, and opening up Chinese markets to U.S. exports.