BEIJING (TIP): Less than onefourth of Chinese like India, found a survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center. The attitude of the Chinese towards Pakistan though somewhat better, is not hugely favourable. The findings underscore Indian government’s poor efforts to implement the muchpublicized attempt to build peopleto- people relationship. The annual survey of global attitudes found 23% of people in India and China take a favourable view of each other’s country. About 53% urban Indians think the economic rise of China is bad for India and 26% said it was good for the country. The Pew report found the Chinese attitude towards Pakistan is only slightly better – 31% of Chinese respondents favour Pakistan.

This is surprising since foreign ministry officials and the state-controlled media are constantly praising Pakistan for being in the “forefront in the war against terror”. Only 39% of Chinese respondents said they viewed Beijing’s relationship with New Delhi as one of cooperation compared to 53% in 2010. The number of Chinese who regard India’s economic advances as positive slid from 60% in 2010 to only 44% now.

Criticism in the Chinese media about New Delhi’s “adamant attitude” on the boundary dispute is seen as a reason for the slide in public opinion about India. Inadequate effort to explain the Indian point of view and build bridges with the ordinary people by facilitating travel and cultural connections is another, observers said.

Most cultural functions and film festivals organized in China by the Indian government are poorly attended by the Chinese due to bad canvassing and distribution of tickets and passes. The India page on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, attracts very poor response compared to pages put up by governments of other countries. Industry interaction programmes organized by the Indian government and industry bodies are usually attended by lower rung Chinese executives. Senior executives and chief executive officers rarely participate, said Shanghai-based country head of an Indian company.