The New York Times foreign correspondent Jane Perlez reported that the 2013 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey revealed China's approval rating in the United States had dropped 14 percentage points in two years, to the lowest rating for China in any region of the world. Perlez cited an article in the Journal of Contemporary China by Tao Xie, a professor of political science at Beijing Foreign Studies University, who said in an interview that his analysis "was rejected by Chinese academic publications because it criticized the Confucius Institutes that the Chinese government has opened in many countries."Jane Perlez (2013), In China and U.S., Mutual Distrust Grows, Study Finds , The New York Times 18 July 2013. Professor Tao statistically analyzed data from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey for factors that affect cross-national variations in China's national image.Tao Xie and Benjamin I. Page (2013), What Affects China's National Image? A cross-national study of public opinion, Journal of Contemporary China, Routledge. Presuming that Chinese foreign direct investment would increase positive public perceptions of China among recipients, Tao tested and disproved a hypothesis that "the number of Confucius institutes in a country should be positively related to favorable opinions about China among that country's people."Tao and Page (2013), p. 7. Tao notes that the number of institutes many be endogenous in statistical terms, because the Hanban has opened most CIs in Europe and North America, "where perceptions of China have been the most unfavorable".Tao and Page (2013), p. 11. Professor Tao concludes that the data reveal, "the Confucius institutes and classrooms have not succeeded in reversing the rather negative image of China in most of the countries where they are located."Tao and Page (2013), p. 17. This conclusion was criticized by other Chinese scholars as "limited," who reject this causational relationship, claiming instead that favorability of China is not solely determined by Confucius Institutes.
