When US President Bush mused publicly around a year back on "Why people hate us so much", he may not have known that a large survey effort was being designed to assess attitudes towards the US amongst the rest of the world, and maybe even help with coming up with some answers. Whether the question was rhetorical or not, the answers are coming anyway...

Today, Americans and their media are doing a bit of naval gazing with the release of "What the World Thinks in 2002", the first major report of the US based Pew Global Attitudes Project by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press. It presents a profile of a world increasingly uncomfortable with US policy and their dominant economic and political position.

The report is garnering massive mainstream publicity right now and the full PDF format report can be downloaded from www.people-press.org. Here we take a different focus on some of the more interesting results from the eight Asian countries surveyed, and tomorrow will examine some of the research methodology issues.

The survey was conducted during July to October 2002, using either face-to-face or telephone interview methodologies depending on country. 38,000 people in 44 nations were interviewed including the Asian countries of India, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China. These Asian countries represent a good cross-section of South East Asian and East Asian countries, religious orientations, and poor and rich countries, but are skewed towards the most highly populated nations.

The percent of people favourable to the US has declined worldwide, though there were some noticeable exceptions. For example 85% of the Uzbekistan sample were positively disposed to the US, compared to 56% in a previous 1999/2000 survey, representing a positive shift of 29%, and Nigeria also moved from 46% in favour to 77% in favour, an increase of 31 percentage points. Ukraine and Russia also moved in a positive direction - (+10 and +24 respectively). In all other surveyed countries where previous survey results were available and the question was able to be asked however, attitudes moved in a negative direction, particularly in countries with a high Islam population such as Turkey (52% favourable to 30% favourable) and Pakistan (23% to 10% favourable -13).

In Asia predominantly Islam Indonesia, savaged by internal terrorism but suspicious of the US's motives in fighting international terrorism moved from 75% favourable to 61%. In South Korea, one of the most prosperous and economically sound countries worldwide and proudly independent, the percentage of the population favourable to the US slid from an already low 58% to 53%. (It should be noted that despite a larger slide, Indonesians are still more favourable to the US than South Koreans according to this survey, reflecting the general antipathy to the Us over time). 72% of Japanese remained in favour of the US, down 5% from 77% in 1999/2000.

Key to the conclusions of the report is what is called "..a great divide..." between global attitudes and public opinion in the United States. "...Americans generally think the export of their ideas and the actions of their government benefit the world.." stated the report, "...but people in most other countries disagree. Those in other countries dislike the spread of American influence and often say the U.S. creates more problems than it solves. These widely different views illustrate the gap between the American public and others..."

It's a dangerous state of affairs for the world's only global power, and may reflect an insensitivity and lack of understanding of the legitimacy of other cultures and political systems, in a country perhaps still in a local honeymoon after the fall of communism.

For example, the report notes "...there is strong support for the United States in Japan and the Philippines, both long-time U.S. allies. Yet South Koreans are much more skeptical despite that country’s close military and economic ties with the U.S. More than four-in-ten South Koreans (44%) have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. Nearly half respondents in Bangladesh (47%) and more than a third in Indonesia (36%), where opinion has declined over the last two years, express an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. America’s image in India is also mixed, with a slim majority of Indians (54%) viewing the U.S. favorably..."

As noted in several other items in Asia Market Research News, South Korea, despite being a vigorous free market economy, does not extend similarities in political systems to the US in general.

"...Among Asian countries surveyed, South Korea stands out for its opposition to the war on terror and its belief that the United States pays little attention to Seoul’s concerns. By three-to-one, South Koreans oppose the war on terror, and by roughly the same margin respondents in this country view the United States as acting unilaterally.

A solid majority of Japanese (59%) also says the United States disregards Japan’s interests, though support for the war is much higher there than in South Korea (61% vs. 24%). In Bangladesh and Indonesia, pluralities say the U.S. disregards their countries interests and majorities oppose the war on terror. Along with South Korea, those two predominantly Muslim countries register the broadest opposition to the war among countries in this region. Opinion is much more favorable to the United States in the Philippines, Vietnam and India. In the Philippines, which has strong historical ties to the United States, most say the U.S. takes their interests into account. In Vietnam, where there has been a recent warming of diplomatic relations with the United States, eight-in-ten say the U.S. takes their interests into account. In India, a plurality (38%) say the U.S. takes their interests into account, although nearly as many (31%) disagree..."

Maybe a pattern is emerging that the US has problems in relating to countries whose cultures are very different and much older and traditional than their own.

On satisfaction with lives, the survey found that though many Asians were less satisfied with their lives than Westerners, their outlook for the future was more positive.

"...Personal contentment is especially low among Chinese and Indian respondents, and relatively few feel they have made personal progress over the past five years. Nevertheless, the Chinese and Indians are extremely optimistic about their futures. In fact, many people in Asia expect their lives to get better. This is the case in the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea and Indonesia. The Chinese and the Vietnamese, in particular, have great confidence that their children will lead better lives than they have. By contrast, the Japanese are among the gloomiest people in Asia, whether reflecting on the past, present or the future..."

"...most Asian respondents – outside of Japan – have an upbeat sense of children’s futures. Eight-in-ten Chinese say the country’s children will be better off than people today; just 9% say children’s lives will be worse. South Koreans, Indians and Indonesians are bit less optimistic, but they still have greater confidence about children’s futures than do Americans or Europeans. But the Japanese are even more pessimistic about their children’s lives than they are about the present or the future. By nearly four-to-one (67%-18%), Japanese believe that when the current generation of children comes of age, their lives will be worse than people today..."

According to the survey, Asian perceptions on the future in general are even relatively up-beat when compared to the still general optimism expressed by survey respondents as a whole.

"...Even in countries where people are gloomy about the present and recent past, there is broad optimism about the future. Asked to assess the state of their lives five years from now, more people in every country express optimism than pessimism. That is the overwhelming sentiment in seven of the eight Asian nations surveyed. In Bangladesh and Vietnam, only about one-in-twenty expect life to get worse over the next five years, while solid majorities believe their lives will improve. Optimism is also the dominant view in South Korea, China and Philippines. Japanese, by contrast, are more conflicted. Roughly a third (34%) expect their lives to improve, while 27% say their lives will be worse..."

Interestingly, but maybe in some ways understandably, Asians living in communist countries were more satisfied with their own governments and countries than those living in democracies. For example, the survey noted that respondents in China and Vietnam were "..much more satisfied" with their country than people in most other parts of Asia.

The survey also questioned respondents on their main concerns. Given the vice-like stranglehold that corruption and the underworld has on the Japanese economic recovery, it is not surprising that 85% of Japanese see crime and also political corruption as a "very big problem".

In other Asian countries terrorism outranks crime and corruption, and "moral decline". in fact four Asian countries headed the list of those countries to whom terrorism is seen as the greatest threat - Bangladesh (92%), India (90%), Philippines (78%), and Pakistan (78%).

However the report also singled out worry about the global ecosystem is the dominant global concern in Asia.

"... Of the top six countries worldwide where pollution and the environment are named as the greatest threat to the world, four are in Asia: South Korea (73%), China (70%), Japan (55%) and the Philippines (49%)..."

However in Indonesia, 64% felt that religious and ethnic hatred, was their greatest threat.

Perhaps the report is correct in headlining a section "Americanization Rejected". Part of that section reads.. "...In general, people around the world object to the wide diffusion of American ideas and customs. Even those who are attracted to many aspects of American society, including its democratic ideas and free market traditions, object to the export of American ideas and customs..."

To Americans, the report suggests that a less arrogant stance from a position of power, and co-operation rather than threats may yield some improvement. More positively for Americans the report suggests that those from other countries who have visited the US or have had strong relationships, are generally more positive. Perhaps it is a quiet message to talk softer, and listen more.

To marketers in Asia, it is a clarion call. While global US brands and American culture has been embraced in cultures as distant as China and Indonesia, it has not necessarily won hearts and minds. Cultural imperialism has always been found wanting in the long term. We have expected a backlash against Us brands and culture to increase in future for a while, and while it takes a giant leap in faith to extrapolate these results to international marketing, it may well be one that is worth making..

[This second part of this report will appear in this place tomorrow]