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The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) conducted an online survey from September 2019 to January 2020 among *non-local university students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, from the eight University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded universities. It was found that the respondents perceived the soft power of Hong Kong to be quite strong (Non-Mainland: 6.28 points; Mainland: 6.82 points). Of the non-Mainland respondents, 48.2% felt that their image of Hong Kong had improved since they began studying in Hong Kong, while 50.8% of the Mainland respondents thought that their image of Hong Kong had deteriorated.

The major findings are summarised as follows

The survey measured soft power as an individual’s perception of the society in two distinctive evaluative dimensions, namely the affective and normative. The affective dimension of soft power, corresponding to emotional attraction to a society, involves attitudes towards its political system, economy, education and science, and culture. The normative dimension relates to a society’s legitimacy. It involves attitudes towards the observation of international norms, and its contribution to the resolution of international problems. At least one question was used to measure the attitude of a student towards each sub-dimension (with a point scale ranging from 0 to 10, 0 = not at all; 10 = extremely well). The soft power index scores of the non-Mainland and Mainland respondents were 6.28 and 6.82 points, respectively (on a point scale ranging from 0 to 10) (Table 1).

Hong Kong’s affective dimension index scores for non-Mainland and Mainland respondents were 6.88 and 6.82 points respectively (on a point scale ranging from 0 to 10). Among four sub-dimensions, the “economy” received the highest score (non-Mainland: 7.82 points; Mainland: 7.54 points), followed by “education and science” (non-Mainland: 7.60 points; Mainland: 7.08 points) and “culture” (non-Mainland: 7.06 points; Mainland: 6.71 points). The “political system” received the lowest score (non-Mainland: 5.31 points; Mainland: 6.04 points) (Table 1).

The normative dimension index scores were 5.98 and 6.77 points for non-Mainland and Mainland respondents, respectively. The scores for the sub-dimension of “observation of international norms” were higher than those for the domain of “contribution to the resolution of international problems”. The former were 6.93 and 7.29 points for non-Mainland and Mainland respondents, respectively; while the latter were 5.29 and 6.21 points, respectively (Table 1).

Apart from soft power, the attitude of non-local students towards Hong Kong was measured by asking the respondents to rate their overall feeling towards Hong Kong on an 11-point scale (0 = extremely bad; 10 = extremely good). The overall feeling of non-Mainland respondents towards Hong Kong was good, at 7.40 points, compared to a score of 6.30 points for the Mainland respondents (Table 2).

In addition, the respondents were asked whether there had been any changes in their feelings towards Hong Kong after coming to Hong Kong. The non-Mainland respondents’ image of Hong Kong largely improved after they began studying in Hong Kong, with 48.2% of them answering “better than before”, 33.2% answering “no change”, and 18.7% selecting “poorer than before”. The Mainland respondents, however, tended to have a poor image of Hong Kong after studying in Hong Kong, with 50.8% of them answering “poorer than before”, 30.4% answering “no change”, and 18.8% selecting “better than before” (Table 3).

Non-local university students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, from the eight UGC-funded universities were the target population of this online survey. There were no further sub-selections in the survey. An e-mail containing the survey was sent to the students with the help of the admissions units, relevant units for non-local students, and the faculties of the eight UGC-funded universities. There were a total of 575 respondents to the survey, of whom 193 were non-Mainland students and 382 were students from the Mainland.

This survey is part of the research project entitled “Education as soft power: Hong Kong-trained non-local university students’ connections and their career plans in Hong Kong”, funded by the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office under the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme.

Centre for Social and Political Development Studies,
The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, CUHK