Investigating Individual Characteristics and Determinants of China’s Image in Latin America

The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw economic relations between Latin America and China expand significantly, creating ramifications that affect the lives of billions worldwide. This has reshaped domestic politics and economics in Latin America, providing an important opportunity to identify how Latin American people react to the ever-increasing presence of China in the region. Public opinion affects de facto and de jure actions, including national policy, toward China and transforms the context and processes of international trade and investment. Through the lens of various theoretical perspectives, this research examines Latinobarómetro survey data to explore the determinants of the opinion of China at the individual level in Latin America over twenty-three years (2001–2023). Our results show that age, gender, religion, ideology, employment status, perceptions of the country’s and the individual’s economy, satisfaction with the country’s democracy, level of education, and public opinion of the United States all have statistically significant effects on how the respondent views China. Through the statistical analysis of the large-scale survey data, this research sheds light on the micro-foundations of public opinion of China in Latin America.