MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. About 72% of Russians surveyed view relations between Moscow and Beijing as friendly, says a poll from the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) published on the organization’s website.
"Today, seven out of ten Russians describe the relations between the two countries as friendly, good-neighborly (72%), the highest figure since observations began. It has doubled since 2005 (2005, 2009 - 34% each, 2014 - 60%, 2022 - 55%, 2023 - 64%)," the report reads.
The survey revealed that 14% of respondents consider relations between Russia and China to be ordinary (40% in 2005), while 8% consider them to be negative (cool - 5%, tense - 2%, hostile - 1%); in 2005, 16% of citizens thought so. Russians of all generations, except for Zoomers, who consider relations between the two countries ordinary (24% vs. 14% among all Russians), give a high assessment to relations with China.
Half of the Russians surveyed (50%) say that their attitude to China has changed for the better over the past ten years, while 16% of respondents don’t give a second thought to China. Over a quarter (28%, -13 percentage points vs. 2014) of citizens said that their attitude toward China has not changed in any way, and only 3% admitted their attitude souring toward this country.
According to VCIOM, 76% of respondents believe that China has managed to fully (18%) or somewhat (58%) compensate for Western sanctions, while the remaining 13% believe otherwise. About 18% of respondents pay attention to China's economy, 15% are interested in the mentality of the Chinese, 10% are interested in history and religion, internal policy - 9%, foreign policy - 4%. Russians are most often interested in Chinese culture in terms of language, art and traditions (38%). Every third person (31%) said that he or she was not interested in Chinese culture.
The All-Russian telephone survey was conducted on May 4, 2024. It covered 1,600 Russians aged 18 years and older. The margin of error does not exceed 2.5% with a probability of 95%.