Critics in the United States and other developed economies accuse China of keeping its currency deliberately low to flood the world with exports of inexpensive goods, devastating manufacturing industries elsewhere.
The Obama administration has repeatedly urged Beijing to let the yuan appreciate, but has stopped short of declaring China a currency manipulator – a designation that could trigger sanctions and perhaps an all-out trade war.
The AFP-Ipsos survey showed that most Japanese (81.8 percent) and Chinese (58.3 percent) thought Obama would be the best US president for Asian economic growth, rejecting Romney’s claims to be the stronger economic manager.
Asked which candidate would be better for peace and security in Asia, 85.3 percent of Japanese and 56.3 percent of Chinese said Obama.
Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University, said Obama’s efforts to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were popular in Japan.
“The Bush administration took a kind of coercive approach to Japan in mustering support for the Japan-US alliance when it dealt with Afghanistan and Iraq. But Obama has not been so forcible,” he told AFP in Tokyo.
Obama’s so-called “pivot” to Asia has been a key strategy of his administration’s foreign policy, a move that China has eyed with suspicion but other Asian states have broadly welcomed as a balance to Beijing’s influence.
Despite the high stakes involved, the poll showed many more Chinese (47.7 percent) are indifferent to the US election outcome than Japanese (30.3 percent).
“The Bush administration took a kind of coercive approach to Japan in mustering support for the Japan-US alliance when it dealt with Afghanistan and Iraq. But Obama has not been so forcible”
Analysts said that with a once-a-decade leadership transition due to take place in Beijing shortly after the US vote, this was not surprising. There was also a sense of disappointment after the excitement of Obama’s 2008 victory.
“The election is the most important to the Japanese, possibly because the US has been their most important long-term ally diplomatically and militarily,” said Lam.
“With their rising political and economic power, the Chinese may regard themselves as less reliant on any single nation including the US, thus the indifference.”
The poll, which surveyed around 1,000 people in each country, has a margin of error of five percent.
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