This week in Shanghaiist
According to a blog essay we found, a recent poll by Harris Interactive showed that of 6,000 people from France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the US, the overwhelming majority considered China the second most powerful nation in the world after the USA. We did some searching on the internet, and couldn't find mention of that report. We tried on Harris Interactive's site as well, but no dice. Perhaps we haven't looked hard enough? Or used the right search terms? The original Chinese news article is on people.com.cn. We really hope this isn't another hoax.
Slightly more believable is the fact that Australia ranks #1 for top country brand. Well, it's believable provided that you can make your mind somehow conceptualize the idea of a country as a brand. All of this was in the context of some huge travel and tourism industry conference/exhibition happening, uh, somewhere. China was called a "rising star" because it was one of the top finishers in categories such as " Best Country Brand Ideal to do Business In" and "Best Country Brand for History". However, there was one category that China fared well in that left us scratching our heads: "Best Country Brand for Authenticity".
Authenticity? That's just what we think of when we think of brand China ... Whoever is doing PR for Brand China, you're a fucking genius.
Picture from wushu-oase.de.
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IHT report on the poll here with link to a PDF of the results (pertinent chart on page 36).
That link is to a story about the popularity of European leaders vs. Bush.
The IHT chose to report on that aspect of the survey; the survey itself asked a number of other questions, one of which concerned the "influence" of certain countries. China ranked second after the US. It's all there in the PDF.
It would be nice if China used some that influence in NK, Sudan and Myanmar.