Individual living condition and country’s economic development

Answers to the question of whether a country’s economy is doing better or worse than the year before were quite evenly distributed among all categories: 14% thought their country was doing much worse, 29% thought the economic situation was worse, 27% saw no significant change compared to the year before, 26% thought the economy had improved, and only 4% saw the situation as much better than in the previous year. If we again include our dependent, variable we observe that negative

perceptions about China were more common in the categories in which people saw a worsening of the economic situation in their country. The scattering in categories 1 and 2 (much worse and worse, respectively) was higher than in categories 3, 4, and 5 (equal, better, and much better, respectively), as the interquartile range in Graphic 9 is larger in these categories.

Graphic 9: People’s perceptions of China among economic change categories

Notes: 1 means people rate Chinese influence for their country as ‘very positive’, while 5 means ‘very negative’. The x-axis covers categories of how people rate their country’s economic change.

In the group of people who rated the economic situation as much better, better, or equal, 50% of respondents saw China’s economic and political engagement as somewhat positive or very positive, 25% saw China’s influence as somewhat positive or are indifferent, and 25% were indifferent or rated China’s engagement as somewhat negative or very negative. In the other categories, in which people saw no change or an economic improvement in their country, 75% of respondents saw China’s economic and political engagement as somewhat positive or very positive.

The interquartile range in the highest-skilled group was larger than in all other categories. Thus, people who perceived an economic improvement in their country

appeared to have more positive attitudes toward China’s growing political and economic influence.

Regarding the individual economic situation, most respondents (48%) rated their current living conditions as bad or fairly bad; 20% were indifferent and 32% saw their living conditions as fairly good or very good.

Graphic 10: Respondents’ Individual living conditions

Notes: The respondents were asked to rate economic conditions in their country compared to 12 months ago.

Similar to perceptions of economic change, the postulated positive connection between the current individual living conditions and perceptions about China’s growing economic and political influence appeared realistic. The means of people’s attitudes toward China were lower in the categories in which people rated their living conditions as bad or fairly bad.

5.5 Correlations

The correlation table delivers an important first impression of possible effects, their direction, and level of significance. Fortunately, most of the connections tended to point to the postulated direction and are significant as well. The main connection between the amount of inward FDI relative to the country’s GDP and how people rate China’s growing influence was slightly positive (r = 0,1) and highly significant (p

≤ .001). Thus, an increase in inward FDI tended to lead to more positive attitudes toward China’s engagement. A different correlation was observable in FDI on the regional level. The connection was also slightly positive (r = 0,003), though not at all significant (p > 0,05). Interesting were the values for skill level and education. The numbers confirmed what was previously described: rather than a positive effect, skill level and education appeared to have a negative effect on people’s perceptions of China’s growing economic and political influence. Both independent variables, education, and skill-level had negative correlations with people’s attitudes toward China’s engagement, and they are highly significant as well (p ≤ .001). No correlation was visible between the urban-rural variable and citizens’ opinions about China’s influence (r = 0). More promising were the correlation values for individual living conditions and perceptions of economic change. People who indeed noticed positive economic development in their country tended to be more positive toward China’s growing influence. The correlation between the two variables was positive (r = 0,015) and highly significant (p ≤ .001). The same was true for individual living conditions.

People who described their current living conditions as good tended to see China

6 Results

The results in the regression model confirmed that the amount of inward FDI did positively influence people’s perceptions of China’s growing economic and political influence. And the analysis showed that infrastructure investments in the transport and construction sectors in particular were responsible for people’s positive attitudes toward China, as these kinds of investments are visible and affect the daily lives of many people living in sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to the amount of inward FDI, the current occupation of respondents – to be precise, the skill level of their jobs – did not influence how they rated China’s role in their countries. The level of education, however, did affect people’s attitudes toward China; however, it did not affect them positively as hypothesized but rather negatively. People with a lower educational background tended to be much more positive than the higher-educated elite. These results show that classic, mostly western-focused globalization theories do sufficiently explain people’s support for China’s growing influence in Sub-Saharan Africa, as the continent is at a separate point of development. Chinese FDI may also be regarded as a kind of threat to the privileged position of high-educated citizens in African societies. Not as hypothesized was the effect of the urban dummy variable (1

= urban, 0 = rural) on respondent’s attitudes toward China’s economic and political engagement. The regression models demonstrated that people living in rural areas had a more positive opinion about China’s growing influence in their countries.

These results fit well with the results for skill-level and education, as people in urban areas tended to have higher educational backgrounds. However, as the multilevel regression models showed as well, citizens living in urban areas were less positive toward China’s engagement, but the effect became negative as the amount of inward FDI rose. In contrast to the urban variable, the hypothesis assuming that people who rate their individual living condition as good are more positive toward China’s growing political and economic influence can be confirmed. However, as the interaction models demonstrated, the positive effect was independent from how much they benefitted from Chinese investments. The same accounts for the economic change variable. People thinking their country’s economy improved compared to twelve months before had more positive attitudes towards China’s role in sub-Saharan Africa. Each variable and their effects are discussed in detail in subsequent chapters.