Britain is “small, yet strong;” Italy is “so weak;” Poland “hates China;” and France has “so many black people.”
These are some of the Chinese netizens’ most common impressions on European countries, according to the autocomplete results on Baidu, China’s largest search engine.
The American magazine, Foreign Policy, drew a map of Europe, labeling dozens of countries with the most popular queries of them and their people on Baidu.
Similar to Google, half way through typing in a question, Baidu tries to predict the second half, based on its archive of what netizens used to be mostly curious about on the same subject.
The amount of autocomplete suggestions on different countries varies significantly, according to Foreign Policy.
Chinese netizens ask more questions about the more developed countries.
Meanwhile, they show limited interest in the ones in areas like the Balkan Peninsula from which the Chinese receive less historical, economic and cultural influence.
Day|Week