HKU POP SITE today releases latest survey findings ofBack

WouldPublicOpinion.org (or WPO) interviewed 21,307 people in 23 regions worldwide between July 15 and November 4, 2008. The survey finds that people who get to know people from other countries or who travel outside their country are more likely to view themselves as global citizens. Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org comments, "These findings suggest it is likely that in the future people will increasingly think of themselves as global citizens. Young people are more prone to see themselves this way. Also, with economic development people travel more, meet foreigners more and become more educated; all these developments are related to greater tendencies for people to see themselves as global citizens." Kull adds, "These findings also suggest international exchange programs, where people meet people from other countries, may increase the likelihood that people will think of themselves in more global terms." The margins of error of WPO surveys conducted around the world are controlled to the range of +/-2 to 4 percentage points.

Points to note:

* The Chinese website of "WorldPublicOpinion.org" is located at http://wpo.hkpop.hk and its English website is located at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org.
* Since there are sampling errors in the survey, the figures cannot be too accurate. When quoting percentages, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places.

POP today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) and "World Opinion Platform" (http://wpo.hkpop.hk) the latest figures of WouldPublicOpinion.org, which reflect people's opinions towards global citizenship. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Margin of error
Varies on 15/7-4/11/2008	21,307	Less than +/-4% in each region

Herewith the results of people in Greater China Region (GCR) and countries well-known to Hong Kong people. The theme is global citizenship. For other figures and contact information, please refer to "World Opinion Platform": *

Date of survey	15/7-4/11/2008
Sample base	Ranges from 600-2,223
In the last five years have you travelled to another country, or not?	Yes		No		DK/NS	Total
Greater China Region average	43%		57%		0%	100%
Hong Kong	61%		39%		0%	100%
Macau	51%		49%		0%	100%
Mainland	5%		96%		0%	100%
Taiwan	56%		44%		0%	100%
United States of America	30%		70%		0%	100%
Britain	77%		23%		1%	100%
France	61%		39%		0%	100%
Thailand	16%		75%		9%	100%
Germany	70%		30%		1%	100%
South Korea	59%		41%		0%	100%
World average	32%		66%		2%	100%
Do you consider yourself more a citizen of [country / region], more a citizen of the world, or both equally?	Citizen of [country / region]	Citizen of the world	Both equally	Neither / None of the above	DK/NS	Total
Greater China Region average	49%	6%	39%	2%	6%	100%
Hong Kong	62%	5%	29%	2%	2%	100%
Macau	61%	6%	27%	2%	4%	100%
Mainland	35%	6%	44%	--	15%	100%
Taiwan	36%	8%	54%	1%	2%	100%
United States of America	72%	5%	22%	--	1%	100%
Britain	59%	9%	29%	2%	1%	100%
France	48%	14%	37%	2%	0%	100%
Thailand	48%	15%	23%	3%	11%	100%
Germany	59%	19%	18%	3%	1%	100%
South Korea	83%	5%	11%	1%	0%	100%
World average	65%	9%	22%	2%	3%	100%

*Except Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan, the other regions are those best known to Hong Kong people. According to the survey conducted by POP on November 5 to 7, 2008, the 10 regions best known to Hong Kong people are the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Germany and South Korea. Among these regions, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Thailand, Germany and South Korea participated in this current survey. For details of survey on people's best known regions, please refer to the press release on November 18, 2008 at the "HKU POP SITE". The figures for Greater China Region are calculated based on the survey results of Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan. Different from the calculation of WPO, the findings of these four regions are included in figures for world average.

Results of the latest survey showed that, among the people in GCR, a respective of 61% Hong Kong public, 56% Taiwan public and 51% Macau public had travelled outside their country/region in the last five years, while a very small amount of Mainland public had travelled outside their country, with only 5%. Regarding citizen identity, among the people in GCR, people in Hong Kong and Macau generally viewed themselves as citizens of their regions, with 62% and 61% respectively, which were comparable to the world average. A respective of 44% and 54% of people in Mainland and Macau viewed themselves as equally a citizen of the world and their country/region.

Invited commentator from Hong Kong Dr John Chuan-Tiong Lim, Fulbright Scholar at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies of Harvard University (email address: [email protected]), analyzes the survey results as follows:

In the past two decades, the ever-increasing frequent exchanges and interactions of people around the world economically and culturally, as well as the intensifying degree of economic dependency between countries, had led to the increased mentions of "global village" and "global citizen" (also known as "global villager") in media. However, how do people around the world perceive themselves as "global citizens"? What particular features do the GCR publics have in the perception of such identity?

The survey began by asking if the respondents had traveled to other countries in the past five years, which aimed to investigate how the experience of contact with other countries would affect people's self-perception on global citizenship.

Among the four cross-strait regions, around 40% of public in average had traveled to other countries. Yet, there were differences between the four regions, of which the most obvious was that more than 50% of publics in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan had traveled to other countries while only 5% of people in Mainland had traveled to other countries in the past 5 years.

The reasons of the Mainland people's apparently less frequent traveling experience to other countries include the country's policies on their citizen's traveling outside the country, as well as the arrangement of some other countries on the Chinese visitors which does not allow more convenient visa applications, etc. The author does not think economic factors such as living standard was the main reasons, nor the lack of interest of Mainland citizens in traveling to other countries.

On the other hand, when asked directly if the respondents viewed themselves more as citizens of [country/region] or as global citizens, the difference between the publics of the four regions appeared to be even more peculiar. As high as 60% of people in Hong Kong and Macau viewed themselves as citizens of their regions, while only 30% of the people in Mainland and Taiwan had the same view. The author believes, this is, to a certain degree, related to the more frequent use of the term "citizenship" in Hong Kong and Macau.

On the contrary, as high as 40% to 50% of the Mainland and Taiwan publics viewed themselves equally as citizens of their country and as citizens of the world, which were higher than that of publics in Hong Kong and Macau, with less than 30%. The major reason was the difference in the definition of "global citizen" among the four regions, as well as the similarity in the usage between "citizen" and "national citizen" or "resident" in Chinese language.

In addition to the language usage, the actual development progresses of the "civil society" among the four regions were not at all the same. Thus, it has to be taken into account the subjective and objective discrepancies in the perception of this issue among respondents in different regions.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org comments, "These findings suggest it is likely that in the future people will increasingly think of themselves as global citizens. Young people are more prone to see themselves this way. Also, with economic development people travel more, meet foreigners more and become more educated; all these developments are related to greater tendencies for people to see themselves as global citizens". Kull adds, "These findings also suggest international exchange programs, where people meet people from other countries, may increase the likelihood that people will think of themselves in more global terms." (For details please go to the website of WPO at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org.)

WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) was initiated and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, USA. At present WPO consists of research centers from over 20 countries or regions including Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan (together called Greater China Region).

Apart from conducting the Hong Kong part of WPO survey, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is also responsible for designing and maintaining the Chinese homepage of the WPO at http://wpo.hkpop.hk, which can be accessed via the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk. Besides, POP is also responsible for coordinating the polls in the Greater China Region, and will follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at [email protected].