Chinese pick Australia as top education destination and fourth “best friend”

Chinese people have named Australia their fourth ‘best friend’, according to Beijing’s answer to the Lowy Poll.

Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney campus.

Chinese people have picked Australia as their top choice for international education and named it their fourth “best friend”, according to Beijing’s answer to the Lowy Poll.

The second year of Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Australia poll – the most authoritative study of the attitude of the Chinese public – also contained good news for the tourism industry.

Australia was the fourth most popular destination for an overseas holiday, despite Chinese state media’s widespread coverage of racist attacks and “unfriendliness” Down Under.

The survey’s lead author Diane Hu, deputy director of Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Australian Studies Centre, said the Chinese perception of Australia was a “tricky mixture of two extremes”.

“One on side, Australia is a nice place to travel and to study. They’ve got all these cute animals. Beaches, sunshine and all those things,” Dr Hu told The Weekend Australian.

“But on the other side is the ideological or political side of it.”

Despite a year of furious bilateral relations, cuddly koalas seem to be overcoming shrill rhetoric from Beijing’s foreign ministry – at least among China’s wealthier and better-educated citizens.

The online survey conducted in mid-June was of 2067 Chinese living in 10 of the country’s most developed cities.

Most of those surveyed were among the top 15 per cent by education and income level, the group most likely to travel and study in Australia.

Even among the elite sample, sentiment towards Australia chilled by 10 degrees from last year to 55 on a “feelings thermometer”, with 0 as the coldest and 100 the warmest. “Warm feelings towards Australia have definitely gone down, pretty much like what has been happening in Australia towards China – but not to the same extent,” said Dr Hu, who is also an associate at University of Melbourne’s Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies.

“If our result was nationally representative, I suspect it would be even worse than the Lowy result.”

The Lowy Institute this week found Australians ranked China in the lowest spot on the Sydney think tank’s “feelings thermometer” towards different countries. A seven degree drop put China at a “very cool” 32 degrees – chillier than even Iran.

Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Australia poll again found Chinese ranked Australia as their top education destination, ahead of the UK in second place.

Recent Sydney University finance graduate Tang Rui, 25, said bilateral “political skirmishes” would not stop him recommending Australia as a place to study.

“Studying in Australia widened my horizon. I got to know many talented people there,” he said from Beijing.

Both Japan and Australia fell two spots to third and fourth place in the list of China’s most preferred overseas travel destinations. This year Russia was in top spot, followed by Singapore.

Respondents ranked Australia in fourth place when asked which country “do you think is China’s best friend?”

Pakistan topped the best friend list, followed by Russia and North Korea.

Almost half of those surveyed – 46 per cent – said the US was the biggest impediment to the China-Australia relationship. Only 16 per cent picked “domestic politics in Australia”.

“China has a very US-centric world view,” said Dr Hu. “The American factor is always there.”