China is suffering from a public relations crisis with the rest of the world, a new report has claimed.
Research from the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) thinktank suggests that a major gulf exists between Chinese self-perceptions and international views of the country.
Whereas China has tried to present its economic growth through the prism of its 'peaceful rise' slogan critics have used the same phrase to demonstrate its untrustworthiness, FPC China programme manager Feng Zhang suggested.
"In the current climate, with China's military buildup and satellites being destroyed, the idea of a peaceful rise is not going to convince the rest of the world," Mr Feng said.
The Chinese people are viewed as communist throwbacks whose "sweatshop" cheap labour is more significant than its businesses' innovative qualities, the report claims.
Wooden portrayals of Chinese government through the country's media do not help matters, while views of authoritarian images and naïve companies are common.
"China's image of herself and other nations' views of her are out of alignment," report author Joshua Cooper Ramo commented.
"The world's view of China is too often an unstable cocktail of out-of-date ideas, wild hopes and unshakeable prejudices and fears. China's view of herself often teeters between self-confidence and insecurity, between caution and arrogance," he explained.
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