Data shows the Chinese government is less popular than state media makes it seem

The White Paper protests, which spread across China in November 2022, were triggered by the death of ten people during a fire in a quarantined apartment building in Urumqi. The protests reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the Chinese government’s COVID-19 policies, which forced observers of Chinese politics to question whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) really enjoys widespread popular support.

In contrast with the majority of protests in China driven by discontent with local governments, the White Paper demonstrations offered critiques of the central government and the CCP’s rule more generally. The CCP’s legitimacy— resting on the party’s achievements in developing China’s economy and reducing poverty, maintaining social stability through censorship and repression, and, increasingly, promoting a nationalist vision of China’s future —depends to a great extent on public perceptions of the regime.

Popular political attitudes in China have shaped the regime’s domestic stability, the reception of its policies, and constrained its foreign policy decisions. These pillars of CCP legitimacy appear to be shifting beneath the regime’s monolithic facade, as demonstrated by the White Paper protests. Whether due to China’s slowing economy, the concentration of power under Xi Jinping or the heavy-handedness of the country’s COVID-19 response, researchers and policymakers must carefully analyse these changes in popular attitudes or risk greatly misunderstanding state-society dynamics.

For scholars of Chinese politics, the most common tool applied to gauge public opinion is a direct survey, in which respondents are asked about their attitudes towards the Chinese government via in-person enumerators or online forms.

One prominent study, published by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at Harvard University, has traced popular attitudes toward the Chinese government since 2003. Their surveys place regime support above 90 per cent, suggesting that favourable views of the Chinese government are as ubiquitous as party propaganda might suggest. These results have been covered by China Central Television, Xinhua, China Global Television Network, China Dailyand other CCP propaganda outlets, becoming part of the state’s efforts to substantiate its legitimacy — both at home and abroad.

But does the CCP really enjoy such widespread support? Or do survey respondents conceal their opposition to the regime due to the threat of repression? And if so, what share of Chinese citizens really support the CCP? To answer these questions, we employed a survey technique known as a list experiment. In a list experiment, respondents are provided with a short list of nonsensitive statements, such as ‘I consider myself a sports fan’, and are asked to tally up the number of statements they agree with.

Respondents were randomly assigned to either a control group or a treatment group, with treated individuals receiving an additional sensitive statement, like ‘I support comrade Xi Jinping’ or ‘the CCP government works for the people’.

The results, which were published in the China Quarterly, reveal widespread preference falsification. With direct questions, individuals reported their support for Xi, the CCP and the Chinese government at rates similar to those found in prior direct survey research, reaching upwards of 90 per cent support for the regime. With list experiments, support for the regime dropped to between 50 per cent to 70 per cent.

Since list experiments may not fully obviate respondents’ concerns about online surveillance, this is more likely an upper bound on regime support. Respondents were more willing to express opposition to ‘the system of government’ than to Xi or the CCP directly.

Across questions and survey waves, support for the regime varied consistently across three characteristics. Ethnic Han respondents supported Xi about 20 percentage points more than minority respondents. College-educated respondents were between 10–20 percentage points more supportive of the CCP than respondents who completed early middle school. This may be because the CCP’s efforts to shape educational curricula have succeeded, or because college-educated Han perform considerably better in the labour market. CCP members are about 10 percentage points more supportive of the regime. This makes sense, since they elected to join the Party and benefit from its rents.

The difference between regime support under direct questioning and regime support under list experiments is known as the preference falsification rate. The survey experiments reveal a preference falsification rate in Xi’s China of around 25 percentage points. A recent meta-analysis examined all known list experiments in autocratic contexts and found an average preference falsification rate of around 14 percentage points. This makes Xi’s China a clear outlier and demonstrates its citizens are far more fearful of expressing opposition to the regime.

These results suggest observers should be sceptical about public opinion surveys in China that rely on direct questioning. The CCP’s sprawling internal security apparatus compels citizens to engage in widespread self-censorship, at a rate nearly three times higher than in Vladamir Putin’s Russia. The pervasiveness of self-censorship has caused observers to overstate the amount of legitimacy that the CCP enjoys. This legitimacy, the conventional wisdom goes, is born of its record of economic growth and a propaganda and censorship apparatus that persuades citizens of the regime’s merits.

The results, most broadly, suggest the CCP confronts widespread frustration. Its recent policies, including the increase in repression and sabre-rattling over Taiwan, should be seen as an effort to contain this frustration.

Erin Baggott Carter is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.

Brett L Carter is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.

Stephen Schick is a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California.