Working paper · August 2026 draft
Clash of Ideologies: How Citizens Respond to U.S. and China's Rhetoric About Domestic Politics in Southeast Asia
Nico Ravanilla and Damian Boldt
In brief
Southeast Asia is contested ground between the U.S. and China. In survey experiments with 5,168 respondents across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, American criticism of illiberal policies cost about one point of favorability while Chinese praise earned nothing. Contrary to the Asian-values thesis, the penalty tracks nationalism, not ideology: citizens punish foreign judgment of their domestic politics rather than dissonance with their values.
Abstract
Southeast Asia is an arena of U.S.-China competition for influence. How each great power addresses the region's domestic politics is central to that competition. Conventional wisdom holds that American criticism of illiberal policies should be punished, while Chinese praise should be rewarded, because the former clashes with Asian values and the latter affirms them. We test this claim with survey experiments among 5,168 respondents in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, paired with a comprehensive measure of Asian values as defined by their proponents. American criticism of illiberal policies reduces favorability by an average of one point on an eleven-point scale in all countries, while Chinese praise yields no systematic gains. Contrary to pre-registered hypotheses, neither effect is moderated by Asian values. Instead, the penalty for American criticism grows with nationalism. Backlash reflects resistance to foreign judgment rather than ideological dissonance, with implications for great-power rhetoric about partners' domestic politics.
Research annotationQuestion, variables, design, findings, and mechanism at a glance▾
- Research question
- When a great power comments on a Southeast Asian country's domestic politics, do citizens punish American criticism and reward Chinese praise, and is any such reaction driven by their affinity for Asian values?
- Independent variable (X)
- Randomized great-power rhetoric in two parallel vignette experiments. A senior American or Chinese diplomat either echoes cooperative summit themes (control), addresses a neutral policy such as overfishing (T1), or criticizes (American arm) or praises (Chinese arm) one of two illiberal domestic policies (T2, T3). Pre-registered moderators include an twelve-item Asian-values affinity index, nationalism, perceived military strength, and human-rights commitment.
- Dependent variable (Y)
- Favorability toward the diplomat and toward the diplomat's country, each on a 0 to 10 scale, plus a 1 to 7 U.S.-versus-China alignment item and open attributions for what pleased or displeased respondents.
- Identification strategy
- Pre-registered survey experiments (plan lodged at OSF, November 2023) with 5,168 respondents across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, each respondent randomized evenly across the four arms of one experiment. Estimation is OLS of the rating on arm indicators with country fixed effects and robust standard errors; a stacked specification interacts arm with a China-experiment indicator to test whether the American and Chinese effects are equal and opposite, and a moderator horse-race enters all four standardized moderators jointly.
- Main findings
- American criticism of illiberal policies lowers the diplomat rating by about one point (T2 -1.10, T3 -0.98, both p < 0.05) in every country, while Chinese praise of the same policies yields no systematic gain (arm-by-China interactions of +1.09 and +0.98 offset the American penalty, and equal-and-opposite tests reject symmetry at p < 0.001). Neither effect is moderated by Asian-values affinity; if anything the Asian-values interaction sits on the wrong side of zero for the resonance account. Instead the penalty deepens with nationalism, by -0.22 (p < 0.05) for T2 and -0.30 (p < 0.01) for T3 per point, and nationalism dominates the joint horse-race.
- Mechanism
- The reaction is a sovereignty tax on foreign judgment, not ideological dissonance. Criticism is penalized while praise merely meets the baseline expectation of non-interference, so the returns are asymmetric. Respondents' own attributions confirm it: American criticism makes them more displeased about being told how to run their domestic politics, but no more attached to liberal-democratic values, and the penalty grows with nationalism rather than with affinity for Asian values.
- Why it matters
- Overturns the Asian-values thesis as an account of how citizens receive great-power rhetoric, showing the mechanism is national sovereignty rather than ideological resonance, and documents an asymmetry with direct implications for how the United States and China should talk about partners' domestic politics.
- Speaks to
- great-power competition and public diplomacyU.S.-China rivalry in Southeast Asianationalism and sovereigntyAsian values and political culturesurvey experiments on foreign policy attitudes
Cite
@misc{ravanilla_ideologies,
title = {Clash of Ideologies: How Citizens Respond to U.S. and China's Rhetoric About Domestic Politics in Southeast Asia},
author = {Nico Ravanilla and Damian Boldt},
howpublished = {Working paper},
}