24.2
Is Rise of China a Threat or a Chance? a Comparative Analysis of Determinant of Perception on China in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan
A Comparative Analysis of Determinant of Perception on China in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan
Shigeto Sonoda
Abstract
The rise of China has been discussed in different area of social sciences, but it is still rare for sociologists in East Asia to address this issue. International dimension of social development in East Asia is, however, necessary and indispensable part in sociological argument and the recent rise of China is one of the core parts of such international dimension.
Comparison of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan in terms of their attitudes toward China provides us with a lot of sociological insights. Comparative analysis of expatriates’ guanxi-building in China tells us that Korean expatriates are more aggressively establishing guanxi network than Japanese and Taiwanese counterparts. Our recent international collaborative research suggests that perception of “political risk of China” is different from Korean businessmen and Japanese/Taiwanese businessmen.
This paper tries to conduct exploratory analysis of Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese perception of the rise of China in comparative perspectives. More concretely, two research questions will be approached in this paper; namely (1) How people in three societies evaluate influence of China, and (2) Who are most concerned about the influence of China on their society, by using AsiaBarometer 2006, which is the only one dataset that enables us to compare Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese views on China in connection with other important socio-economic variables.
Our data analysis reveals the fact that it is only in Taiwan that household income of the respondents has negative correlation with evaluation of the influence of China. Why is there such a difference? This paper, by answering this question, tries to argue that “perceived” relation is important in discussing the issue of the rise of China.