How Discrimination Increases Chinese Overseas

Students’ Support for Authoritarian Rule∗

Yingjie Fan Jennifer Pan Zijie Shao Yiqing Xu

29th June 2020

Abstract

The cross-border flow of people for educational exchange in Western democracies is seen
as a way to transfer democratic values to non-democratic regions of the world. What
happens when students studying in the West encounter discrimination? Based on an
experiment among hundreds of Chinese first-year undergraduates in the United States,
we show that discrimination interferes with the transfer of democratic values. Chinese
students who study in the United States are more predisposed to favor liberal demo-
cracy than their peers in China. However, anti-Chinese discrimination significantly
reduces their belief that political reform is desirable for China and increases their sup-
port for authoritarian rule. These effects of discrimination are most pronounced among
students who are more likely to reject Chinese nationalism. Encountering non-racist
criticisms of the Chinese government does not increase support for authoritarianism.
Our results are not explained by relative evaluations of US and Chinese government
handling of covid-19.

Keywords: discrimination, xenophobia, linkage, democratization, China, overseas

students

∗
Yingjie Fan, International Policy Studies, Stanford University, and Department of Statistics, International
Monetary Fund, yingjief@stanford.edu. Jennifer Pan, Department of Communication, Stanford Univer-
sity, jp1@stanford.edu. Zijie Shao, School of Government, Sun Yat-Sen University, shaozijie@vip.sina.
com. Yiqing Xu, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, yiqingxu@stanford.edu. We thank
Yiqin Fu, Marshall Mo, Mincong Pan, Leo Yang, Xu Xu for helpful comments; and to our incredible research
assistants in China and the United States. All opinions are our own.
1. Introduction

Scholars and policy makers have long thought that the cross-border flow of people for edu-
cational exchange in the democratic West may be a way to transfer democratic values and
ideas to non-democratic regions of the world (e.g., Coombs 1964). Some consider it an im-
portant element affecting the strength of a country’s linkage to the West and its prospects
for democratization (Gift and Krcmaric 2017). What happens to this transfer of democratic
values when those who come to the West experience discrimination?
We expect discrimination targeting foreign visitors to interfere with the transfer of demo-
cratic values. A large body of research shows how discrimination leads to a retreat from or
a backlash against the dominant group, often as a way of coping with the psychological
distress—anger, decreased self-esteem, stress—of experiencing discrimination. For example,
among immigrants, discrimination has been shown to diminish integration and assimilation,
increase attachment to ethnic identity, and make radicalization more likely (Abdelgadir and
Fouka 2020; Adida, Laitin and Valfort 2010; Gould and Klor 2016; Lyons-Padilla et al. 2015;
Mitts 2019; Schildkraut 2005). Experiences of racism among minorities groups, including
Asians, have been associated with social exclusion and political disenfranchisement (Hajnal
and Lee 2011; Kim 2007; Kuo, Malhotra and Mo 2017; Wong 2008). Likewise, we expect
that when students studying abroad face discriminatory attacks tied to their nationality,
they may increase their support for the political values associated with their national affili-
ation as a way to buffer against the psychological distress of discrimination. When students
come from authoritarian regimes, we expect experiences with discrimination to increase the
likelihood that students will reject democratic values in favor autocratic ones.
We find that this is the case through an experiment with over 300 Chinese first-year
undergraduate students in 62 universities across the United States. Chinese undergraduates
in the United States are wealthier, come from larger Chinese cities, have better-educated
parents, and are more predisposed to favor democracy than their peers at top universities in

1
China. However, when students see xenophobic, anti-Chinese comments made by Americans,
it generates anger and decreases their belief that political reforms are desirable for China.
Strikingly, we find that encountering xenophobic discrimination is more likely to increase
support for autocracy among students who are more pre-disposed against the Chinese re-
gime and less supportive nationalistic Chinese policies. We find no increase in support
for authoritarian rule when Chinese students encounter non-racist criticisms of China, the
Chinese government, and China’s political institutions made by Americans.
We find little evidence that the alternative explanation of social comparison is driving
our results (Festinger 1954). How people evaluate their own country is often relative to eval-
uations of other countries and contexts (Duch 1993; Huang 2015; Kayser and Peress 2012;
Rose, Mishler and Haerpfer 1998; Rose, Mishler and Munro 2011). Experiencing discrimina-
tion while abroad may negatively affect an individual’s evaluation of the country in which dis-
crimination occurred. If the site of discrimination is a democracy and the individual’s home
country is autocratic, an individual’s support for authoritarianism may increase because of
declining evaluations of democracy. This effect may be exacerbated because our study takes
place during the covid-19 pandemic, where the dismal performance of the United States in
handling covid-19 relative to China is considered a major setback for democracy (Diamond
2020). Although scholars believes what explains divergent outcomes in countries’ response
to covid-19 is not regime type (Fukuyama 2020), relative comparison in performance and
may be an underlying factor influencing more positive evaluations of autocracy relative to
democracy.1 Our results do not support this explanation. Although Chinese students in
our sample evaluate the Chinese government’s handling of covid-19 much more positively
than the US government’s response, we find little evidence that experiencing discrimination
makes students more likely to criticize the US response to the covid-19 pandemic. Although
1
As of June 25, 2020, the United States had 2,422,299 cases (∼738 cases per 100k population) and China
84,701 cases (∼6 cases per 100k population; the United States had 124,410 deaths (∼38 deaths per 100k
population) and China had 4,641 deaths (∼0.3 deaths per 100k population). Data from COVID-19 Dash-
board by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU),
https://bit.ly/3i7Ies6 (accessed on June 25, 2020).

2
we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the relatively poor performance of the
United States in managing covid-19 is a precondition for students’ increased support of au-
thoritarianism in response to discrimination, we can say that social comparison and relative
performance are not sufficient to account for the results we observe.
This study has theoretical and policy implications. Theoretically, this paper draws from
diverse literatures to shed light on a micro-mechanism underlying linkage and democratiz-
ation. While prior research on discrimination has shown how discrimination can increase
ethnic attachments, we extend this argument to show how discrimination based on attacks
on a person’s country of origin (xenophobic attacks) can also increase attachments to the
political values of that country of origin. We then integrate this insight into theories of link-
age to show how discrimination on the basis of nationality blocks and perhaps unravels the
mechanisms through which education can increase acceptance of liberal democracy. Without
discrimination, education abroad may make individuals more likely to accept liberal demo-
cratic values, but when that time abroad is accompanied by experiences of xenophobia,
acceptance is less likely.
These results also have policy implications. An increasingly contentious relationship
between the United States and China during the Trump administration has been accompan-
ied increasing xenophobia and discrimination against people with perceived ties to China.
This anti-Chinese sentiment has ratcheted up dramatically during the covid-19 pandemic,
where Chinese Americans, Chinese living in America, and other Asians lumped as Chinese
have been subject to racism and discrimination. Reminiscent of the treatment of American
Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, a main differ-
ence is that instead of advocating for tolerance of American Muslims as President George
W. Bush did in 2001, President Trump and other prominent US figures have themselves
engaged in xenophobia and inflamed racist attacks. Growing restrictions on Chinese stu-
dents, researchers, and scientists in the United States are motivated by the fear that China
has benefited more from educational exchanges than the United States has. While China

3
has grown stronger economically and technologically, China has not liberalized its political
system. Our results show that students who come to the United States from China are
pre-disposed to favor liberal democracy, but if US policies toward China continue to be ac-
companied by discrimination, the acceptance of democratic values among these students will
only diminish.

2. Racism and Perceptions of Democracy

We bring together several literatures to provide a theoretical framework to understand how

discrimination can influence visitors’ perceptions of democracy and their opinions of the
suitability of democracy for their countries of origin. We then explain why it is appropriate
to study the effects of xenophobic discrimination on political preferences among Chinese
students in the United States.

2.1. Theoretical Framework

An important, international influence on a country’s prospects of democratization is its

degree of linkage to Western democracies (Levitsky and Way 2006, 2010). Linkage refers to
the density of economic, political, diplomatic, social, organizational ties and consists of cross-
border flows of goods, money, and information, and people. Linkage affects democratization
because democratic values, norms, habits, and practices are transmitted through these dense
ties. Linkage results from long-term historical trajectories and geography, and is, hence, slow-
changing. However, scholars contend that linkage is not structurally pre-determined, and
that it can change meaningfully over time (Tolstrup 2014).
The importance of people traveling from non-democratic countries to study in Western
democracies has received special attention for its potential to increase linkage. The cross-
border flow of people can subsequently deepen other aspects of linkage. For example, suppose
a person spends time in a foreign country, that person becomes more likely to communicate
with people in that country, to travel to that country again, to make investments in that

4
country, and to deepen other economic, political, and cultural ties with that country.
In addition to these general downstream effects of cross-border flows of people, travel
abroad for education has received special attention as a catalyst for democratization for two
main reasons (Gift and Krcmaric 2017). First, going to school in a democracy can make
individuals more likely to accept Western democratic values and norms. The education
experience is predicated on learning and personal development. Acculturation, the process
an individual who comes from a different culture experiences in adopting, acquiring, and
adjusting to a new prevailing cultural environment, is an expected part of the study abroad
experience. Through the classroom, extracurricular activities, and new social relationships,
students can pick up democratic values, norms, and practices when studying abroad. Second,
the education experience is highly social, which lends itself to the creation of new and diverse
social ties. These social ties provide valuable resources for individuals, even after they return
to their country of origin. Although acculturation and the development of social ties can
occur to all people who cross borders, these two factors are particularly relevant to the
educational experience, which assumes an openness to change in individual mindsets and
behaviors.
What happens when foreign students are discriminated against because of their race or
nationality while studying in a democratic country? Studies of immigration have established
a strong connection between discrimination and decreased integration and assimilation (Ab-
delgadir and Fouka 2020; Adida, Laitin and Valfort 2010; Gould and Klor 2016; Schildkraut
2005). Immigrants often retreat to their ethnic identities when faced with discrimination,
and are sometimes radicalized as a result (Lyons-Padilla et al. 2015; Mitts 2019). Racism
and discrimination have been linked to social exclusion among ethnic minorities (Segura
and Rodrigues 2006; Schmidt Sr. 2000), suppressing their civic and political participation
(Chang 2004; Devos and Heng 2009; Devos and Ma 2008; Hajnal and Lee 2011; Kim 2007;
Kuo, Malhotra and Mo 2017; Liang, Li and Kim 2004; Masuoka and Junn 2013; Segura and
Rodrigues 2006; Schmidt Sr. 2000; Wong 2008). Students studying abroad generally expect

5
to return to their home countries. They are not necessarily seeking to permanently integrate
into the society where they are obtaining their education. What do we expect to see among
these temporary visitors?
Drawing from research in psychology and political science, we expect xenophobic dis-
crimination, which we define as unjust or prejudicial treatment of a person or group on
the grounds of nationality, to diminish favorable perceptions of democracy and decrease
students’ willingness to advocate for democracy in their countries of origin. It is well es-
tablished that discrimination diminishes psychological well-being (Banks, Kohn-Wood and
Spencer 2006; Padela and Heisler 2010; Umaũa Taylor and Updegraff 2007). Psychological
distress can manifest as stress, depression, lower self-esteem, and anger (Flores et al. 2008;
Ong, Fuller-Rowell and Burrow 2009; Simons et al. 2006). Actions we observe among those
who are targeted by discrimination—retreating to ethnic identity, radicalization, anger, and
violence—often represent strategies for coping with this psychological distress (Fischer and
Shaw 1999; Wei et al. 2008). For example, when a person from group A is subjected to
discrimination by someone in group B, that person can attenuate decreases in well-being by
increasing their identification with group A Branscombe, Schmitt and Harvey (1999). Neg-
ative effects on well-being can also be limited through expressions of increased antagonism
toward group B, its members, and its values. Likewise, we expect experiences with xeno-
phobic discrimination to generate psychological distress, and we expect those who face such
experiences to express greater support for the political values associated with the aspect of
one’s identity under attack—in our case, one’s national affiliation—as a way to buffer against
the psychological distress created by discrimination. If we replace group with country, when
a person from country A is subjected to xenophobia by someone from country B, that person
may limit the negative psychological effects of discrimination by increasing their identific-
ation with country A. If a person is subjected to discrimination in a democratic country
and that person comes from a country with a non-democratic political system, we expect
xenophobia to increase support for non-democratic values and institutions.

6
 Alternatively, experience with discrimination abroad may reshape an individual’s eval-
uation of the country in which discrimination occurred, and because of social comparison,
change an individual’s evaluation of his/her country of origin. Research has shown that social
comparison plays an important role in individuals’ evaluation their own situation (Easterlin
1995; Festinger 1954). How people evaluate their country’s economic performance, political
institutions, and policies is often relative to evaluations of other countries and contexts (Duch
1993; Huang 2015; Kayser and Peress 2012; Rose, Mishler and Haerpfer 1998; Rose, Mishler
and Munro 2011). As a result, when visitors to a foreign country experience discrimination,
it may improve their evaluations of their home country because their evaluation of the foreign
country worsens. If discrimination takes places in a democracy and if the person targeted
by discrimination is from an authoritarian regime, discrimination may increase support for
authoritarianism because of declining evaluations of democracy.
Experiences with discrimination may also have downstream effects on the formation of
social ties. Studying in democracies also fosters linkage through the creation of new and
diverse social ties. Experiences with discrimination make it less likely that such ties will form
as students retreat to their national enclaves. Studies of international students in the United
States and other Western democracies consistently show that racism and discrimination is
associated with isolation, stress, mental health issues, making it more difficult for students
to acculturate and integrate (Lin and Scherz 2014; Oramas, Gringarten and Mitchell 2018;
Poyrazli and Grahame 2007; Russell, Rosenthal and Thomson 2010; Wei et al. 2007).
Altogether, this means that xenophobic discrimination blocks and perhaps unravels the
micro-foundation of the effects of education on transferring democratic values. Without dis-
crimination, education abroad may make individuals more likely to accept liberal democracy,
but when time abroad is accompanied by experiences of discrimination, individuals, for a
number of reasons, may become less likely receptive to liberal democracy.

7
2.2. Anti-Chinese Sentiment

We study the effects of xenophobic discrimination on the democratic preferences of Chinese

students studying in the United States because it is theoretically relevant and substantively
important. United States foreign policy toward China since Nixon’s visit in 1972 has been
one of engagement, of building and increasing linkage with the implicit goal of catalyzing
political liberalization in China. This has resulted in extensive economic, social, diplomatic,
and military connections between the two countries. As of 2018, China was the United
States’ largest trading partner, and the United States was China’s largest trading partner
and biggest source of foreign direct investment.
When Chinese students first began studying in the United States at the end of 1978,
President Carter hoped that educating young Chinese students about American values and
ideas would liberalize China and enable the development of personal relationships between
future leaders of the two countries (Bu 2003; Clough 1981). The main risk for the United
States was that Chinese students would not only learn about American political values but
gain scientific and technological capabilities for China. For China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping,
the transfer of Western democratic ideas to China was a main risk of education exchange but
one China was willing to take given the opportunity to improve China’s educational, tech-
nological, and economic capabilities (Li 2005). Since 1978, millions of Chinese students have
studied in the US, and the many scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, and artists produced by
this exchange have contributed to the development of the two countries (Lloyd-Damnjanovic
2018). Today, Chinese students represent the largest source of international students in the
United States (369,548 of 1,095,299 international students in the 2018/2019 academic year),
contributing nearly $13 billion to the US economy (Tolstrup 2014).2
Whether the United States or China has been more successful in attaining their original
goals through this educational exchange is hotly debated. Some argue that this exchange
has stabilized US-China relations, allowing the two countries to weather shocks such as the
2
International students numbers from IIE, see https://bit.ly/3fOBZHy (accessed on June 23, 2020).

8
Tian’anmen massacre in 1989 and the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in
1999 (Jia and Rubin 1997), and that this exchange has benefited the United States more
than China economically.3 Others contend that the benefits of the exchange favor China to
the detriment of the United States, as evidenced by China’s dramatic economic growth and
lack of democratization.
US policy-making in the Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by the lat-
ter view that economic and social linkages with China are more likely to strengthen Chinese
power than liberalize China politically. Prior to September 11, the George W. Bush admin-
istration perceived China as the major threat to the United States. The view that China
poses an existential threat to the United States has been revived in the Trump adminis-
tration, where defunct groups previously dismissed as xenophobes such as the Committee
on the Present Danger, warn against the dangers of China. The United States has adopted
policies to proactively diminish its connections with China; for example, increasing US tariffs
on Chinese goods, increasing checks on Chinese investment in the US, and increasing visa
restrictions for Chinese travelors, researchers, and students.
These changing policies have been accompanied by racism and discrimination against
Chinese people. The justification for limiting Chinese researchers and students in the United
States—that they could be spies for the Chinese government—echo rationalization given for
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. In late 2019, the chairman of
the Committee of 100, a non-profit organization of high-profile Chinese Americans, said
“With growing US–China tensions and fears of Chinese espionage, we hear clearly from our
members that Asian-Americans, especially those who work in the STEM fields, are facing
an increasingly hostile environment where our loyalty is being consistently and unfairly
challenged.”
This antagonism and hostility has ratcheted up significantly as a result of the covid-19
pandemic. Reminiscent of the attacks faced by American Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians
3
See recent report on the impact of Chinese talent on US development of AI capabilities at https://bit.
ly/37Ywtzw (accessed on June 23, 2020).

9
in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Chinese Americans, Chinese living in America, and
other Asians lumped as Chinese have been subject to growing racism and discriminatory
attacks. The FBI warned that “hate crime incidents against Asian Americans likely will
surge across the United States, due to the spread of coronavirus disease...endangering Asian
American communities.” And unlike in 2001, when President George W. Bush called for
tolerance toward American Muslims, President Trump and other US politicians have inflamed
racist attacks by calling covid-19 “the Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu.”4

3. Research Design

As part of a broader project to measure the effects of US education on preferences for

democracy, we recruited a cohort of Chinese first-year undergraduate students studying in
the United States and a cohort of Chinese first-year undergraduate students studying in
China in a panel study where students are recontacted every six months until they graduate.
We recruited Chinese students in the United States through the Chinese social media plat-
form WeChat and through US-based Chinese student networks with the help of 10 research
assistants (RAs) at five US colleges.5 We asked the RAs to recruit first-year undergraduates
at their own universities and through their personal networks. As a result, 377 students from
66 US institutions participated in the first wave of our survey. We refer to this sample as
the US sample.6 At the same time, we recruited 615 first-year students from three top-tier
Chinese universities located in North, East, and South China with the help of eight RAs
from these universities. All three Chinese universities are public, as most prestigious uni-
versities in China are. Our RAs were able to reach out to our target student population
via advertisements on online forums, contact via student organizations, and onsite recruit-
4
See reporting at https://to.pbs.org/3hRVSPH, https://on.wsj.com/3erZxlp, https://nyti.ms/
2VaOuFs.
5
These colleges include two private colleges, one of which is in the Ivy League, and three public universities.
One institution is in the Northeast, one in the South, one in the Midwest, and the remaining two are in the
West.
6
Among them, 56% of the students were from the five institutions our RAs came from.

10
 Figure 1. Flowchart of the Survey Experiment

START

Background Information

Pre-treatment Measures of
Ideology

Randomize
Control Treatment A Treatment B

Domestic Media Article on Foreign (US) Media Article Foreign (US) Media Article
Dr. Li Wenliang on Dr. Li Wenliang on Dr. Li Wenliang

Chinese Commentary
Critical of the Chinese
Government
US Commentary Critical of
US Commentary
the Chinese Government +
Critical of the Chinese
Racist Commentary toward
government
Chinese

END

ment at locations such as student canteens. We refer to these students as the China sample.
For both samples, we base recruitment on the following criteria: recruited students must
be (1) Chinese nationals, (2) born between 1995 and 2002,7 (3) attend a four-year college,
(4) in their first year of college, and (5) completed their high school education in mainland
China. In this first wave, we asked about the students’ basic demographic and educational
background. Although we attempted to recruit as many students who satisfied our criteria
as possible, our samples are not representative of the first-year Chinese student bodies in
Chinese or US colleges.
The main results of this paper are based on an experiment embedded in the second-round
7
96% of students in our samples were born between 1999 and 2001.

11
survey we conducted in the US sample in late spring of 2020. A total of 312 first-year students
from 62 US institutions participated (recontact rate of 82.8%). We also recontacted students
in the China sample and asked them to fill out the same survey; 514 students completed the
survey, making the recontact rate 83.6%. Students in the China sample did not participate
in any experiment and received the same information as the Control group of the US sample.
The experiment was administrated only in the US sample because the issue of xenophobia
has low validity and relevance for the China sample who are generally not exposed to Western
media or interactions with the West.
Figure 1 illustrates the flow of the survey and experiment. We first ask respondents
questions on their background, including family demographics, social economic status, their
perceptions of how well different governments have handled covid-19, as well as questions
to measure ideology on nationalism and political liberalism. We define ideology as the
configuration and constraint of preferences on policies. Based on previous research, ideology
in China is multi-dimensional, and preferences for nationalism and political institutions are
distinct, though correlated, dimensions (Pan and Xu 2018). We operationalize ideology by
asking respondents for their level of agreement on a battery of policy issues (see Appendix
Table A1 for these survey items). This means that for nationalism, we are not asking
questions about patriotic attitudes (e.g., “I am proud to be Chinese.”) or victimization
sentiment (e.g., “Unless China becomes modernized, foreign countries will try to exploit
China.”) (Woods and Dickson 2017). Instead, we ask respondents for their opinions toward
a number of nationalistic policies—for example, the extent to which they agree that “national
unity and territorial integrity should be defended at all costs,” and “The government should
ban artists who support Taiwan independence and Hong Kong independence from performing
in mainland China.” To measure ideology on political liberalism, we ask respondents for
agreement with questions such as “China should not adopt universal suffrage at this stage
because people’s level of education is not high enough,” and “The government should allow
people to express their positive or negative views toward government policies.” We use this

12
set of questions because they have high predictive power over a person’s ideology and have
high inter-temporal stability (Pan and Xu 2020). We also ask respondents about their
evaluation of how well governments around the world, including China, the United States,
Japan, and South Korea, have handled the covid-19 pandemic.
For the experiment, respondents were randomized into three treatment and control groups
(for covariate balance among the three groups, see Table A2 in the Appendix). Each group
read a news article and online commentary related to covid-19 in China. No deception was
used in the experiment, and all aspects of the survey and experiment was approved by our
universities’ Institutional Review Boards. The three groups were:

1. Control : Chinese media report of Dr.Li Wenliang’s death + commentary critical of

Chinese government handling of covid-19 from Chinese online platform;
2. Treatment A: US media report of Dr.Li Wenliang’s death + commentary critical of
Chinese government handling of covid-19 from United States online platform; and
3. Treatment B : US media report of Dr.Li Wenliang’s death + commentary critical of
Chinese government handling of covid-19 and commentary expressing racist attitudes
toward Chinese people from United States online platform.

All groups read a news article detailing the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor
in Wuhan who was silenced by local authorities for issuing warnings in the early days of
covid-19 and who subsequently died of covid-19. The Control group read an article from an
independent Chinese media outlet.8 Respondents assigned to Treatments A and B read an
article from a US media outlet.9 Chinese translation of the US media article was provided
alongside the original English text in the experiment. We selected the Chinese media and
US media articles based on their similar in content. Both the Chinese and the US media
articles focused on the facts and details of Dr. Li Wenliang’s life and death.
After reading the news article, respondents in the Control group were shown 10 actual
8
The article came from Caixin. Respondents were only told that it came from a Chinese media outlet
before reading the article. However, the text “journalists from Caixin” appeared in the article. See https:
//bit.ly/2XO2Xc0 for the original article (accessed on June 10, 2020).
9
The article came from CNN. Respondents were not told the exact source of the article, only that it came
from a US media outlet. See https://cnn.it/2MOmhzy for the original article (accessed on June 10, 2020).

13
Chinese online comments critical of the Chinese government’s handling of covid-19. One post
says, “The government is incompetent, and the people suffer,” and another says, “Don’t
ask for whom the death bell tolls, the death bell tolls for you and me, for fundamental
rights of citizens, freedom of speech, supervision, and information.” Respondents under
Treatment A were shown 10 actual online comments critical of the Chinese government’s
handling of covid-19 in response to reporting on China’s covid-19 sitution by US media. For
example, one post says “For the Chinese government, their economy is more important at
this point...Unfortunately, the victims are people with serious conditions who are struggling
to get the urgent medical attention they need, they are neglected.” Since these posts were
in English, we also provided Chinese translations.
Finally, respondents under Treatment B were also shown 10 actual comments made in
response to reporting on China’s covid-19 situation by US media. However, Treatment B
contained five comments critical of the Chinese government and five racist comments. For
example, one such racist comment states “The Chinese refuse to accept new ways; allowing
the population to practice primitive rituals in disgusting, filthy conditions....” and another
“The Chinese have disgusting dietary habits. If something moves, they consider it food. Not
to mention that they’re destroying habit, polluting the skies and the waters and just making a
mess of everything they touch.” Although discrimination manifests in many forms—unfairly
denied a job or career advancement, unfairly treated by police, being the victim of a hate
crime—we focus on verbal attacks with explicit racial derogation, which is a type of racial
microaggression that has been shown to be common to the experience of minorities in the
United States (Sue et al. 2007). Appendix Section A.1 shows the articles, comments, and
their English translation.
After reading the news article and online commentary, we first ask the respondents how
they they feel about what they have read. Then, we ask them what, if anything, they would
want to say to the online commentator in private in an open-ended response. We coded

14
their open-ended responses for 1) opinions about China’s challenges and shortcomings,10
2) criticisms of the United States government in general and its handling of covid-19, and
3) other comments (e.g., comments responding to an individual commentator, profanity).
Criticisms of the United States government and or its handling of covid-19 include any
responses that mentions the inadequacy and/or inefficiency of US government handling of
covid-19—for example, its lack of transparency in case reporting, its lack of responsiveness
in testing, and its failure to contain and mitigate the effects of the pandemic.
To measure main outcome variable, support for authoritarian rule in China, we ask
respondents about the extent to which they support for China’s current political system and
how much they trust the Chinese central and local governments. Support for the current
regime is based on agreement with the following four statements on a 5-point Likert scale:

1. Although the political system of our country has flaws, it is the most suitable to China’s
current situation;
2. It now seems that our country’s political system is not inferior to those of Western
developed countries;
3. I prefer to live under my country’s political system than other systems; and
4. Nothing in particular needs to be improved in our country’s current political system.

We purposefully avoid the terms autocracy and democracy, and instead focus on China’s
political system and the political system of Western developed countries to proxy support
for status quo authoritarianism vs. liberal democracy. The definition of autocracy and
authoritarianism is not clearly understood by the general public, but previous public opinion
research shows that people living in China understand their political system as one of single-
party rule without electoral representation (Gilley and Holbig 2009; Pan and Xu 2020; Tang
2005; Wang 2007). We avoid the term democracy because the Chinese government has
worked to co-opt the term ”democracy” and argue that China is democratic because it has
intra-party democracy (Li 2009). We construct two regime support indices based on these
10
We coded comments on China’s challenges and shortcomings, including its handling of Dr. Li’s and other
aspects of China’s political system, as well as China’s challenges and shortcomings, excluding the handling
of Dr. Li’s case.

15
statements. The first one is an simple additive index which is the summation of the four
Likert scores with equal weights. The second index is the first principal component when we
conduct a principal component analysis (PCA) over the four indicators. These two indices
are correlated at 99.9%. Both indices are standardized to have means equal to 0 and standard
errors equal to 1 in the US sample. We also measure support for authoritarian rule in China
by looking at trust. Trust is often used in studies of authoritarian regimes, including China,
as a proxy for support for authoritarianism (Chen 2017; Levi and Stoker 2000; Mishler and
Rose 2001; Yang and Tang 2010). We ask respondents for their level of trust in the central
(中央) government and in local (市) governments, both on a 10-point Likert scale.
Throughout the paper, we use Lin (2013)’s method to estimate the Average Treatment
Effects (ATEs) of Treatments A and B relative to the Control condition:

Yi = τ0 + τA DiA + τB DiB + (Xi − X̄)0 γ0 + DiA (Xi − X̄)0 γ1 + DiB (Xi − X̄)0 γ2 + εi (1)

in which Yi is an outcome of interest, DiA and DiB are dummy variables indicating that
respondent i is assigned to Treatment A and Treatment B, respectively; Xi is a vector of
pre-treatment covariates, including gender, family income, parents’ education and job type,
and nationalism and liberalism ideology; X̄ is a vector of sample means of the covariates;
and εi represents idiosyncratic errors. τ̂A and τ̂B are the estimates of the casual quantity
of interests. Because the treatment is assigned at the individual level, we use Huber-White
heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors throughout the paper.

4. Discrimination and Support for Authoritarian Rule

We begin by contextualizing our results, showing how Chinese students in the United States
compare with Chinese students at top-tier Chinese universities in terms of demographic
characteristics and political opinions. We then show how xenophobia increases psycholo-
gical distress–specifically anger—and how it increases support for the Chinese regime and
antagonism toward the United States. Finally, we show how the main treatment effects are

16
moderated by nationalism.

4.1. Comparison of Chinese Students in the United States and

China

Our sample of US- and China-based college students are relatively balanced on gender, but
that is where the similarity ends. As Table 2 shows, Chinese first-year students in the
United States are much more likely to have grown up in a first-tier city in China, with 97%
of students in the US sample coming from these cities compared to 57% for students in
the China sample.11 A much larger proportion of students in the US sample have college-
educated parents (89% fathers, 87% mothers) compared to the China sample (51% of fathers,
45% of mothers), as well as parents who hold managerial positions at work (41% of fathers
and 31% of mothers in the US sample vs. 21% of fathers and 8% of mothers in the China
sample). Compared with the China sample, students in the US sample are much more likely

Table 1. Demographic Comparisons

Variables US China Variables US China
#Observations 312 514 #Observations 312 514
Female 0.52 0.56 Major:
Raised in a large city 0.97 0.57 Humanity 0.20 0.11
Father: college educated 0.89 0.51 Social sciences 0.38 0.27
Father: managerial position 0.41 0.21 STEM 0.55 0.38
Mother: college educated 0.87 0.45 Medicine 0.04 0.19
Mother: managerial position 0.31 0.08 Institution:
Family monthly income (RMB) Private 0.39 0.00
<5,000 RMB 0.01 0.21 Northeast, USA 0.24 NA
5,000-8,000 RMB 0.05 0.20 Midwest, USA 0.15 NA
8,000-10,000 RMB 0.04 0.27 South, USA 0.11 NA
10,000-20,000 RMB 0.14 0.15 West, USA 0.49 NA
20,000-50,000 RMB 0.30 0.08 North China NA 0.31
>50,000 RMB 0.26 0.04 East China NA 0.37
Unreported 0.20 0.05 South China NA 0.33

to come from affluent families. More than half of the US sample (56%) report monthly
11
First-tier cities include all three provincial-level municipalities, all provincial capitals, and Shenzhen.

17
family income higher than 20,000 RMB per month ($2,800/month), while nearly half of the
China sample (47%) report month family income of 5,000-10,000 RMB per month ($700-
$1,400/month). More than half of students in the US sample have declared majors in the
humanities and social sciences (58%) and 55% in STEM fields. In the China sample, 38%
have declared majors in the humanities and social sciences and 38% in STEM fields. Note
that double-majors are more prevalent in US colleges than their Chinese counterparts, and
more students in Chinese universities pursue bachelors degrees in medicine. In the US sample,
39% of the students are studying at private institutions (6% in Ivy League schools); 24%,
15%, 11% and 49% of the students are from schools in Northeast, Midwest, South and West
regions, respectively. Students in the China sample are relatively evenly distributed among
the three universities in North, East, and South China (31%, 37%, and 33%, respectively).
Looking at political ideology and regime support, Table 2 shows that students from the
US sample are on average less nationalistic (-0.82 standard deviation, or SD), more politically
liberal (+0.51 SD), and less likely to fully embrace China’s current political system (-0.79
SD) compared to students in the China sample. US-based students also report lower levels

Table 2. Political Ideology and Trust in the Government

US China
Variables #Obs Mean SD #Obs Mean SD
Nationalism ideolgoy index 308 0.00 1.00 514 0.82 0.66
Liberalism ideology index 308 0.00 1.00 514 -0.51 0.79
Regime support index (additive) 309 0.00 1.00 514 0.79 0.69
Regime support index (PCA) 309 0.00 1.00 514 0.79 0.67
Trust in the central government 312 5.88 2.52 514 8.24 1.51
Trust in the local government 312 6.38 2.31 514 7.00 1.88
Note: Nationalism ideology, liberalism ideology, and regime support indices are standardized
based on the US sample. Trust in the central and local governments are measured on a 1 to 10
scale (10 being the highest level of trust).

of trust in the Chinese government, especially in the central government. These results
are consistent with findings from Pan and Xu (2018) that people of high socio-economic
economic status are more likely to subscribe to liberal political values and less likely to
support nationalistic policies.

18
 When we examine respondents’ distribution of nationalism, liberalism, and regime sup-
port, the differences in political ideology between students in the United States and China
stand out even more starkly. Figure 2 illustrates how the distributions of political opin-
ion differ substantially between the United States and China samples of college students.
US-based students are on the whole less nationalistic, more politically liberal, and less sup-

Figure 2. Ideology and Regime Support: China vs. US samples

0.7

0.7

0.7
China China China
US US US
0.6

0.6

0.6
0.5

0.5

0.5
0.3 0.4

0.3 0.4

0.3 0.4
Density

Density

Density
0.2

0.2

0.2
0.1

0.1

0.1
0.0

0.0

0.0
−4 −2 0 2 4 −4 −2 0 2 4 −4 −2 0 2 4

(a) Nationalism ideology (b) Liberalism ideology (c) Regime support

Note: Distributions of indices of nationalism ideology (panel a), political liberalism ideology (panel b),
and regime support (additive, panel c) for the China sample (light gray) and US sample (dark gray). Posit-
ive values indicate higher levels of nationalism, liberalism, and regime support. All indices are standardized
such that the US sample has 0 mean and standard deviation 1. Because regime support is measured post-
treatment, panel c is based on the control group of the US sample.

portive of the Chinese regime. Interestingly, for both nationalism and regime support, the
US sample of students exhibits a large left tail, suggesting that there exist a proportion of
Chinese students in United States who are strongly against nationalistic policies and who
do not support China’s current political system when compared with other students.

4.2. Main Effects of Discrimination

Anger: Theoretically, we expect discrimination to generate psychological distress. We find

that exposure to xenophobic discrimination increases anger and decreases sadness. Figure 3
shows how respondents respond emotionally to Treatment A and Treatment B as compared
to the Control group.12 Panel (a) of Figure 3 shows the effects of Treatment A and Treatment
B on sadness, and Panel (b) of Figure 3 the effects of Treatment A and Treatment B on
12
We report the details of the regression results in Appendix Table A5.

19
anger in comparison to the Control group. We report 90% (thick bars) and 95% (thin bars)
confidence intervals based on heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors.

Figure 3. Emotional Reaction to Treatments

0.3 Sadness Anger

0.3
0.2

0.2
●
0.1

0.1
●
0.0

0.0
●
−0.1

−0.1
●
−0.2

−0.2
−0.3

−0.3
Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B
Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist

(a) Sadness (b) Anger

Note: The reported estimates are based on Equation (1) and are relative to the Control condition.
All outcomes are binary. Estimates are relative to the Control condition. Thin and thick bars
represent 95% and 90% confidence intervals, respectively, based on Huber-White robust standard
errors. The Control group means for sadness and anger are 45.1% and 11.8%, respectively.

Panel (a) shows that respondents under Treatment B, who are exposed to critical and
racist comments, are 12.0% less likely to express sadness, and Panel (b) shows that Treatment
B makes respondents 11.7% more likely to express anger then those in the Control group
when they are asked about their feelings toward the article and comments. In contrast,
Treatment A, exposure to comments critical of the Chinese government, does not decrease
sadness or increase anger compared to the Control group in a statistically significant way.

Regime Support: Our main result pertains to the effects of discrimination on support
for authoritarian rule in China. We focus on three outcomes: an additive index of support
for the Chinese Communist regime, trust in the central Chinese government, and trust in
local municipal governments in China. Figure 4 presents our findings where outcomes are
standardized to have 0 mean and standard deviation 1 for fair comparisons.
Figure 4 shows that, compared with the Control condition, Treatment A—US media
content combined with comments by Americans critical of the Chinese government—on

20
average, does not change the respondents’ support for the Chinese regime on any of the three
outcomes. However, Treatment B—US media content followed by comments critical of the

Figure 4. Treatment Effects on Regime Support

Regime Support Index Trust in Central Gov. Trust in Local Gov.

0.6
0.4
0.2

● ●

●
0.0

● ● ●
−0.2
−0.4

Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B

Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist

Note: The reported estimates are based on Equation (1) and are relative to the Control condition. All three
outcomes are standardized (Mean = 0; SD = 1). Thin and thick bars represent 95% and 90% confidence
intervals based on Huber-White robust standard errors.

Chinese government and racist toward Chinese people—on average, increase the respondents’
support for China’s current authoritarian system by about 0.2 standard deviation, which is
statistically significant at the 5% level. The ATE of Treatment B on trust in the local
government is also positive and of similar size, but not statistically significant at the 10%
level. The ATE on trust in the central government is close to zero.

Robustness Checks: Because our sample size is a relatively small, the uncertainty es-
timates based on large sample theories may be misleading. To account for this potential
issue, we conduct a permutation test as a robustness check on the regime support index by
randomly reshuffling the treatment assignment among all respondents and re-estimating the
effects 2,000 times. Figure 5 shows the results of the randomization inference for Treatment
A and Treatment B on regime support. In this figure, the black vertical lines represent the
estimated treatment effects using the original sample. The two-sided p-values under sharp
nulls is 0.9 for Treatment A and 0.033 for Treatment B (Figure 5). This means the chance
the positive association between Treatment B and regime support is due to a statistical fluke

21
 Figure 5. ATE on Regime Support: Randomization Inference
Treat A: Critical Treat B: Critical + Racist

6
p−value: 0.900 p−value: 0.033

5
4

4
Density

Density
3

3
2

2
1

1
0

0
−0.3 −0.2 −0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 −0.3 −0.2 −0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3

Note: The above figures show the distributions of treatment effects when treatment assignment is randomly
reshuffled 2,000 times. The black vertical lines represent the estimated treatment effects using the original
sample. Two-sided p-values under sharp nulls are reported.

are as small as 3.3%.

We also report the estimated ATEs of Treatments A and B on each of the four items
that constitute the regime support index. As Figure 6 shows, with one exception, Treat-
ment B has consistently large and positive effects on support for authoritarianism in China
while the ATEs of Treatment A are virtually zero in all cases. Specifically, exposure ra-

Figure 6. Treatment Effects on Individual Regime Support Items

Despite flaws, China's political system is China's system is not inferior to those Compared with other political system, Nothing in particular of China's political
0.6

suitable for China's current situation. of western developed countries. I prefer to live under the current one. system needs improving.
0.4

● ●
0.2

●
●
●
0.0

● ●
●
−0.2
−0.4

Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B

Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist

Note: The reported estimates are based on Equation (1) and are relative to the Control condition. All four
outcomes are on a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Thin and thick bars represent
95% and 90% confidence intervals based on Huber-White robust standard errors. The Control group means
for the four outcomes are 3.64, 3.36, 3.13, and 2.01, respectively.

cist online commentary leads respondents to be more likely to agree that “Despite flaws,
China’s [authoritarian] political system is suitable for China’s current situation.” Similarly,
encountering xenophobic discrimination leads respondents to be more likely to agree that

22
 “China’s political system is not inferior to those of Western developed countries,” which are
democratic. Finally, after being exposed to racist commentary, respondents are more likely
to agree that “Nothing in particular needs to be changed about China’s political system.”
There is no similar increase in agreement for Treatment A, which is identical to Treatment
B except that none of the online commentary in Treatment A is racist. The one item of the
regime support index that Treatment B does not affect is agreement for preferring to live
under China’s current political system as opposed to other political systems. This disaggreg-
ated result further buttresses our confidence in the causal effect of discriminatory messages
on support for status quo authoritarianism.

Alternative Explanation: To determine whether social comparison explains how dis-

crimination affects preferences for authoritarianism, we examine how students evaluate the
performance of the United States and China in handling the covid-19 pandemic, and we also
examine whether xenophobia increases criticisms of the United States.
We find that respondents evaluate the Chinese government’s handling of covid-19 much
more positively than that of the US government. As shown in panel (a) of Figure 7, 89%
of respondents think the US government has handled the covid-19 pandemic badly or very
badly, while 89% of respondents think the Chinese government has handled the covid-19
pandemic well or very well. For reference, we also include students’ assessment of the South

Figure 7. Pre-treatment Evaluation of Government Response to Covid-19

70

70

70

70
60

60

60

60
Percentage of Respondents (%)

Percentage of Respondents (%)

Percentage of Respondents (%)

Percentage of Respondents (%)

50

50

50

50
40

40

40

40
30

30

30

30
20

20

20

20
10

10

10

10
0

Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well

(a) China (b) United States (c) Japan (d) South Korea
Note: The above figures show the respondents’ views toward government performance in handing the
covid-19 in China (a), United States (b), Japan (c), and South Korea (d). Respondents were asked to
answer on a 1-4 Likert scale: “What do you think of [country name] government’s response to covid-19?”

23
Korean and Japanese government. As shown in Figure7, students assess Japan and South
Korean’s handling of covid-19 much more positively than that of the United States, but less
positively than that of China.13
However, despite students’ pre-treatment positive evaluation of the Chinese government’s
performance relative to that of the United States government, Treatment B does not in-
crease respondents’ criticism of United States government more than Treatment A (Appendix
Table A7), nor is Treatment B’s effect on regime support moderated by the difference in per-
ceived performance between China and the United States (Appendix Figure A4). Instead,
Treatment B simply makes it less likely that respondents will criticize the Chinese govern-
ment. After our treatments, we asked the respondents what they would like to privately
say to the online commentators whose messages they read if given the opportunity. Most
respondents left a message (82.4%), and we code messages as those that comment on China’s
shortcomings and challenges and those that criticize the United States government.14 For
example, one respondent in the Control condition said this of the Chinese government, which
we categorize as a comment on China’s shortcomings and challenges:

...the flaws of the [Chinese] system have always existed. Disasters reveal the flaws,
but even if the epidemic passes, we should remember our current sentiment (制
度的缺陷是一直存在的，只是灾难让缺陷显现来了，所以就算疫情过去了，我
们也应该记住现在的心情).

Another example response in this category from a respondent in Treatment A says:

The [Chinese] government deliberately concealing the death of the whistleblower

is an outrage, which means that there are many acts of concealment and cover-up
of the truth in this epidemic. (政府刻意隐瞒吹哨人的死亡是一件令人气愤的事
情，这意味着在这场战疫中存在很多瞒报或者掩盖真相的行为).
13
As shown in Appendix Figure A1, students in the China sample view the Chinese government’s response
even more positively and the United States response even more negatively than Chinese students in the US
sample.
14
Two research assistants coded these outcomes independently. Inter-coder reliability was above 90% for all
outcomes.

24
Responses that we categorize as criticizing the United States include this comment from a
respondent in Treatment B:

In the United States, in the two months since the virus emerged, Americans have
not paid it much attention. The main reason for this tragedy is the misleading
messages the American government has been spreading. (在美国，从发现病毒
到之后近两个月时间完全却没有看出美国人民的重视程度，而美国政府的错误
宣传正是导致此悲剧的主要原因).

In Figure 8, we look at the effect of Treatment A and Treatment B on the probability

of leaving a message (left panel), of leaving a message that comments on China’s challenges
and shortcoming (center panel), and of leaving a message criticizing US response to covid-19
(right panel) relative to the Control group. Compared to the Control group (group mean

Figure 8. Hypothetical Replies

0.3

Leaving a Comment Commenting on China's Challenges

0.2

●
0.1

● ●
0.0

●
● Criticizing US Response
−0.1

●
−0.2
−0.3

Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B Treat A Treat B

Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist Critical Critical + Racist

Note: The reported estimates are based on Equation (1) and are relative to the Control condition.
All outcomes are binary. Thin and thick bars represent 95% and 90% confidence intervals based
on Huber-White robust standard errors. The Control group means for the four outcomes are
80.7%, 22.3%, and 1.2%, respectively.

80.7%), Treatment A does not change the likelihood of leaving a comment in a significant
manner, but Treatment B increases this likelihood by 8.5%. For commenting on China’s
shortcoming, Treatment A decreases the likelihood of 7.2% (from Control group mean of
22.3%), though the effect is not significant at the 0.1 level (see Table A7 for regression
results). Treatment B decreases the likelihood of commenting on China’s shortcoming by

25
16.9%. The difference between Treatment A and B in commenting on China’s shortcoming
is statistically significant at the 5% level. This means the inclusion of racist commentary
makes it less likely that Chinese students will reflect on, comment on, and criticize the
Chinese government.
In contrast, compared to the Control group (group mean 1.2%), Treatment A increases
the likelihood of criticizing the United States by 13.5% and Treatment B increases this
likelihood by 7.4% (right panel Figure 8). We expect to see more discussion of the United
States in both Treatment A and B relative to the Control group because the Control condition
does not mention the United States and all of the online comments are in Chinese. As a
result, respondents in the Control group are unlikely to comment on the United States in the
open-ended response following the treatment. The fact that Treatment B (racist comments)
does not increase criticisms of the United States government more than Treatment A suggests
that the alternative explanation of social comparison is not sufficient to explain the effects
of discrimination on support for Chinese authoritarianism that we observe. The reason why
respondents under Treatment B are more likely to leave a comment than respondents under
Treatment A, but less likely to comment on China’s challenges or criticize the US response
is that a substantial proportion of the comments to Treatment B were refutations of racism.

4.3. Political Pre-Disposition and Effects of Xenophobia

Finally, we investigate how the treatment effects vary by the respondents’ political pre-
disposition, specifically, nationalism ideology. Following Pan and Xu (2018), we measure the
respondents’ nationalism ideology based on summation of answer to five survey items (details
in the appendix). We estimate the marginal effects of Treatment B (relative to Control)
moderated by nationalism ideology (percentile) using a semi-parametric kernel estimator
proposed by Hainmueller, Mummolo and Xu (2019). The outcome variables are the same as
those in the main results: index of regime support, trust in central government, and trust in
local government.

26
 Figure 9 shows that, across all three outcomes, respondents who are less nationalistic
are more likely to be affected by the racist comments. In each panel of Figure 9, lower

Figure 9. Marginal Effects of Treatment B on Regime Support:

by Nationalism Ideology
Regime Support Index Trust in Central Government Trust in Local Government
2
1.0
1.0

0.5 1
0.5
Marginal Effects

Marginal Effects

Marginal Effects
0.0 0.0 0

−0.5
−0.5 −1

−1.0
−1.0
−2
0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
Moderator: Nationalism Moderator: Nationalism Moderator: Nationalism

Note: The above figures show the marginal effects of Treatment B (relative to the Control condition)
by nationalism ideology (in percentile). A bigger number on the x-axis represents greater support for
nationalistic policies. Confidence intervals are based on bootstrapping of 1,000 times. All outcomes are
standardized (Mean = 0; SD = 1). We include gender, family income, parents’ education and job type,
liberalism ideology, as well as their interactions with the treatment indicators, in the kernel estimation.

values of the x-axis (nationalism ideology) represent respondents who are less supportive
of nationalistic policies, and higher x-axis values represent higher levels of support. For
regime support (left panel), we can see positive marginal effects of discrimination on regime
support for respondents who have lower levels of nationalism. Likewise, Treatment B has
positive marginal effects on trust in central government and trust in local government for
respondents with lower levels of nationalism. We also examine how the treatment effects
are moderated by respondents’ pre-disposition toward political liberalism. We find that the
treatment effect heterogeneity is limited along this dimension once the nationalism ideology
and its interaction with the treatments are being accounted for (the results are shown in
Appendix Figure A3).
The fact that encounters with discrimination increases support for authoritarian rule
and the Chinese regime more intensely among individuals who are pre-disposed to oppose
the Chinese regime may be due to several reasons. First, because nationalism ideology
and regime support are highly correlated (Appendix Figure A2), those who hold strong

27
nationalistic views are more likely have strong and positive views toward China’s current
system; therefore, it may be more difficult to change their mind. Relatedly, there may be a
ceiling effect that prevents us from measuring any additional change in regime support among
those who hold strong nationalistic views. Second, racist comments may convey information
that is new to respondents who are less nationalistic. Respondents who are nationalistic
may already view the West as enemies who want to denigrate and control China and thus
exposure to racist commentary is not as surprising or unexpected as for those who are less
nationalistic.

5. Conclusion

By conducting a survey experiment with over 300 first-year Chinese students studying in 62
US colleges, we show that exposure to racism boosts regime support among Chinese stu-
dents. Specially, when the students are asked to read a Western media article covering Dr.
Li Wenliang’s death, followed by racist, anti-Chinese comments by American commentators,
they are more likely to support for China’s current political system and less likely to endorse
political reform, and report higher level of trust in the Chinese government, compared with
students in the Control group who read an article from a Chinese media outlet, followed
by comments by Chinese commentators critical of the Chinese government. These effects
are more pronounced among students who originally hold less nationalistic views. However,
exposure to the same Western media article, followed by comments by American comment-
ators critical of the Chinese government, but containing no racist comments, does not have
such effects.
Theoretically, these results provide evidence that discrimination interferes with the trans-
fer of democratic values. Policy-wise, our findings suggest the rise of anti-Chinese discrim-
ination under the Trump administration may further strengthen the rule of the Chinese
Communist Party by boosting support for is rule among a new generation of Chinese stu-
dents who were the most likely to subscribe to democratic values.

28
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34
A. Supplementary Materials (Not For Publication)

Table of Contents

A1 Survey materials

• Control and treatment conditions

• Measuring ideology

A2 Additional tables and figures

• Balance table

• Treatment effects on regime support (table)

• Treatment effects on individual regime support items (table)

• Treatment effects on emotion (table)

• Treatment effects on hypothetical replies (table)

• Views toward government responses: China and US samples (figures)

• Marginal effects of Treatment B on regime support: by liberalism ideology

(figures)

• Marginal effects of Treatments A and B on regime support: by difference

in perceived performance (figures)

A-1
A.1. Survey Materials

Treatment and Control conditions

Control condition. The respondents are shown the Chinese text only.

下面请您仔细阅读一篇来自中国媒体的报道。

健康的社会不应只有一种声音：新冠肺炎“吹哨人”李文亮去世

2月7日凌晨3点48分，武汉中心医院官微发布消息：“我院眼科医生李文亮，在抗击新冠肺炎
疫情工作中不幸感染，经全力抢救无效，于2020年2月7日凌晨2点58分去世。对此我们深表痛惜和
哀悼。” 今年2月1日上午，李文亮被确诊感染新型冠状病毒肺炎。
李文亮是武汉市中心医院的一名眼科医生，他曾试图将工作中获知的危险告诉同学，却不想
“倒霉地”做出了一个“违法行为”。一个月前的12月30日17时48分许，李文亮在一个150人左右
的同学群中发布信息称：“华南水果海鲜市场确诊了7例SARS，在我们医院急诊科隔离”。同一
天，武汉市卫健委印发的《关于做好不明原因肺炎救治工作的紧急通知》也在网络上流传，其中
要求严格信息上报，并强调“未经授权任何单位，个人不得擅自对外发布救治信息”。
李文亮在微信群里的提醒揭开了口子。一名群友将他的对话截图发上了网络，而且没有隐去
最关键的信息：他的名字和职业。这让看到截图的人精准地找到了他，不久他即被医院监察科约
谈，并在1月3日到辖区派出所签了一份对“违法问题”警示的《训诫书》。 1月20日后，随着新冠
肺炎疫情迅猛发展，这位曾被警方定性为发布不实信息的人，其本人的遭遇又被视为这次疫情中
前线医护人员的注脚：在接诊过程中自己被感染，病情一度恶化进了ICU。此外，他的多名同事和
父母也感染了新型冠状病毒肺炎。
当公众追溯疫情源头才发现，原来早已有人预警，李文亮因其截图上的实名又成为了能被找到
的“吹哨人”。他曾对财新记者表示，是否给他平反已经不那么重要，因为真相比这更加重要，
一个健康的社会不应该只有一种声音。

A-2
下面请您阅读一些摘自中国社交媒体的真实评论（为保护隐私，ID经编辑）：

English Translation (not seen by the respondents)

Please read an article from an Chinese media outlet.

A Healthy Society Should Not Have Only One Voice

At 3:48 am on February 7, the official Weibo account of Wuhan Central Hospital released a message:
”Ophthalmologist Dr. Li Wenliang of our hospital was unfortunately infected during the battle
against COVID-19. After rescuing him by all efforts, at 2:58 am on February 7, he passed away.
We deeply regret and mourn this.” Li Wenliang was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Feb 1st, 2020.
Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, tried to tell his classmates about
the dangers he learned at work, but “unluckily” commit an ”illegal act.” A month ago, 17:48
on December 30th, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message in his WeChat alumni group of about 150
members: ”7 cases of SARS have been confirmed in the Wuhan Seafood Market and they were
isolated in the emergency department of our hospital.” On the same day, the ”Urgent Notice
on Doing a Good Job in the Treatment of Unknown Causes of Pneumonia” issued by the Wuhan
Municipal Health Commission was also circulated on the Internet, which required stricter reporting

A-3
of information and emphasized that ”unauthorized individuals shall not publish information without
authorization ”.
Li Wenliang’s message in the WeChat group opened the floodgate. A group member posted a
screenshot of the conversation on the Internet and did not hide the most critical information: Li’s
name and occupation. This allowed people who saw the screenshot to accurately identify him. Soon
after, Dr. Li was interviewed by the Hospital Supervision Section and signed a letter of admonition
for committing “unlawful behaviors” on January 3rd at the police station in his jurisdiction. After
January 20, with the rapid development of the novel coronavirus, Dr. Li was identified by the police
as posting false information. His own experience is regarded as a footnote for frontline medical staff
in the epidemic. During the process of treating patients, Dr. Li was infected, and his condition
deteriorated and had to be sent to ICU. In addition, several of his colleagues and parents were
infected with COVID-19.
When the public traced the origin of the epidemic, they discovered that some people had already
given a warning sign, and Li Wenliang became a ”whistleblower” who could be found because his
real name was included in the screenshot. He once told Caixin reporters that clearing his name is
not so important as seeking the fact, and a healthy society should not have only one voice. 

Please read the following real comments from Chinese online platforms (commentators’ IDs are
edited to protect privacy).

• Don’t ask for whom the death bell tolls, the death bell tolls for you and me. Fundamental
rights of citizens: freedom of speech, supervision, and information.
• Once a society loses the possibility of common expression, what kind of future will we face?
For example, who should be responsible for COVID-19? But no matter who is responsible,
the people are the most innocent victims. Chinese people have no freedom of speech because
the government wants a harmonious society. When will Chinese people have the freedom of
speech? Slim.
• The doctor who promptly uncovered the problem was framed as a rumormonger by the
incompetent local leaders, and eventually caused an irreparable disaster. This is indeed a
man-made disaster. This caused so much damage to the country’s economy and people’s
lives. For the main responsible persons, especially the mastermind who concealed the report
of the epidemic and falsely pretending to cover up the truth, shooting a hundred times is not
enough to atone for their crimes.
• I feel complicated; I don’t know what else to say. Within the system, everything is arranged
for us. Anyone who voices to endanger this system will be arranged to disappear.
• I feel really sad. Some people are indifferent to life and only pay attention to people in power.
Such a strong contrast makes people feel sorrowful.

A-4
• The government is incompetent, and the people suffer, helpless! When will my Wuhan return
to the normal?
• If his death can’t yield a sincere apology in exchange, that means that the authority can
never be challenged regardless of being right or wrong. If his death can’t result in an era
of truth in exchange, truth has been dictated and there is no need for any verification. I
apologize to Li Wenliang for me, also being a Chinese citizen, failing to speak up for him. I
apologize to Li Wenliang for his honesty and for me failing to prove his innocence.
• I don’t know where the problem is, and how can it be changed. The only thing I can do
is to survive this night with dry eyes. Disaster is disaster and pain is pain. I, we, most of
us, are not unable to bear the pain but unable to bear formalism that still prevails in 2020.
False, boastful and empty talks are disgusting! Formalism is just keep lingering around like
sticking bugs!
• The Chinese government has a lot to change: judicial system reforms, government man-
agement reforms, financial capital market reforms, labor organization reforms, etc. ... it’s
easiest to find problems at the grass-root level, but they can always be easily suppressed.
Trust takes decades to build but can collapse instantly. Those who spread conspiracy theories
and appeal to political ideology are whom mislead the public. They are all enemies of the
people ... People know how hard it is to tell the truth. . . People have evolved!
• If the CCP is not in power, someone else can sub. They will suffer. [But] under the current
system, slogans are the only thing left. Human is selfish with their interest, and Democracies
know that, and the people will find ways to supervise [those in the office]. So people in
democracies don’t worry about officers being selfish, they don’t care.

A-5
Treatment A: Western Media plus Critical Comments. The respondents are shown
both the English text and its Chinese translation.

下面请您仔细阅读一篇来自外国媒体的报道。 (Please read an article from a foreign media outlet.

[Note: the English translation of this sentence is not shown])

Wuhan hospital announces death of whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang

武汉医院宣布“吹哨”医生李文亮死亡

The death of a doctor widely regarded as a hero in China for blowing the whistle on the threat
posed by the Wuhan coronavirus has led to a massive outpouring of grief and anger online.
在中国，由于吹哨警戒武汉冠状病毒的威胁而被大众视为英雄的医生的离世，导致互联网涌现
出了大量的悲痛和愤怒情绪。
Li Wenliang died of the virus in the early hours of Friday morning local time, Wuhan Central
Hospital, where he worked, said in a statement. The confirmation follows a series of conflicting
statements about his condition from the hospital and Chinese state media outlets. ”Our hospital’s
ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected with coronavirus during his work in the
fight against the coronavirus epidemic,” the hospital said. ”He died at 2:58 am on Feb 7 after
attempts to resuscitate were unsuccessful.”
李文亮医生所在的武汉市中心医院发表声明，证实当地时间周五凌晨，李文亮医生死于新冠病
毒。在此之前，该医院和中国官方媒体对他的病情发表了一系列相互矛盾的声明。该医院表示：
“我院眼科医生李文亮在抗击冠状病毒疫情的工作中不幸感染。在尝试进行心肺复苏失败后，
于2月7日凌晨2:58死亡。”
Li was among a number of supposed ”rumormongers” detained in December for spreading
news about the virus. In December, he posted in his medical school alumni group on the Chinese
messaging app WeChat that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a
SARS-like illness and were quarantined in his hospital in Wuhan. Soon after he posted the message,
Li was accused of rumormongering by the Wuhan police. He had warned about a potential ”SARS-
like” virus spreading in Wuhan.
李文亮医生是因传播有关该病毒的新闻而被拘留的“谣言分子”之一。2019年12月，他在医学
院校友微信群中警告了一种潜在的“类似SARS”的病毒正在武汉传播，因为当地一家海鲜市场的
七名患者被诊断出患有类似SARS的疾病，并在其所在的武汉市中心医院接受隔离。在发布消息后
不久，李被武汉警方指控为散布谣言。
Nothing Li said was incorrect, but it came as officials in the city were downplaying the severity
of the outbreak and its risk to the public. There were more apparent efforts to control the narrative
even after Li’s death – leading to widespread anger.
但李文亮并没有说错，由于该市官员对疫情严重性及其对公众风险的轻视；甚至在李文亮去世
后，政府更努力地试图控制对此事的舆论风向——从而导致了众怒。
He was one of several medics targeted by police for trying to blow the whistle on the deadly
virus in the early weeks of the outbreak. Li had raised the alarm about the virus that ultimately

A-6
took his life.
李文亮医生是在病毒大面积传播和爆发前的最初几周里，试图向公众发出警示的吹哨人之一。
最后，李医生也被他尝试警醒大家的病毒夺走了生命。

下面请您阅读一些摘自美国社交媒体的真实评论（为保护隐私，ID经编辑）： (Please read

the following real comments from U.S. online platforms (commentators’ IDs are edited to protect
privacy). [Note: the English translation of this sentence is not shown])

A-7
Treatment B: Western Media plus Critical and Racist Comments. The respondents
are shown both the English text and its Chinese translation.

下面请您仔细阅读一篇来自外国媒体的报道。 (Please read an article from a foreign media outlet.

[Note: the English translation of this sentence is not shown])

Wuhan hospital announces death of whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang

武汉医院宣布“吹哨”医生李文亮死亡

The death of a doctor widely regarded as a hero in China for blowing the whistle on the threat
posed by the Wuhan coronavirus has led to a massive outpouring of grief and anger online.
在中国，由于吹哨警戒武汉冠状病毒的威胁而被大众视为英雄的医生的离世，导致互联网涌现
出了大量的悲痛和愤怒情绪。
Li Wenliang died of the virus in the early hours of Friday morning local time, Wuhan Central
Hospital, where he worked, said in a statement. The confirmation follows a series of conflicting
statements about his condition from the hospital and Chinese state media outlets. ”Our hospital’s
ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected with coronavirus during his work in the
fight against the coronavirus epidemic,” the hospital said. ”He died at 2:58 am on Feb 7 after
attempts to resuscitate were unsuccessful.”
李文亮医生所在的武汉市中心医院发表声明，证实当地时间周五凌晨，李文亮医生死于新冠病
毒。在此之前，该医院和中国官方媒体对他的病情发表了一系列相互矛盾的声明。该医院表示：
“我院眼科医生李文亮在抗击冠状病毒疫情的工作中不幸感染。在尝试进行心肺复苏失败后，
于2月7日凌晨2:58死亡。”
Li was among a number of supposed ”rumormongers” detained in December for spreading
news about the virus. In December, he posted in his medical school alumni group on the Chinese
messaging app WeChat that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a
SARS-like illness and were quarantined in his hospital in Wuhan. Soon after he posted the message,
Li was accused of rumormongering by the Wuhan police. He had warned about a potential ”SARS-
like” virus spreading in Wuhan.
李文亮医生是因传播有关该病毒的新闻而被拘留的“谣言分子”之一。2019年12月，他在医学
院校友微信群中警告了一种潜在的“类似SARS”的病毒正在武汉传播，因为当地一家海鲜市场的
七名患者被诊断出患有类似SARS的疾病，并在其所在的武汉市中心医院接受隔离。在发布消息后
不久，李被武汉警方指控为散布谣言。
Nothing Li said was incorrect, but it came as officials in the city were downplaying the severity
of the outbreak and its risk to the public. There were more apparent efforts to control the narrative
even after Li’s death – leading to widespread anger.
但李文亮并没有说错，由于该市官员对疫情严重性及其对公众风险的轻视；甚至在李文亮去世
后，政府更努力地试图控制对此事的舆论风向——从而导致了众怒。
He was one of several medics targeted by police for trying to blow the whistle on the deadly
virus in the early weeks of the outbreak. Li had raised the alarm about the virus that ultimately

A-8
took his life.
李文亮医生是在病毒大面积传播和爆发前的最初几周里，试图向公众发出警示的吹哨人之一。
最后，李医生也被他尝试警醒大家的病毒夺走了生命。

下面请您阅读一些摘自美国社交媒体的真实评论（为保护隐私，ID经编辑）： (Please read the

following real comments from United States online platforms (commentators’ IDs are edited to
protect privacy). [Note: the English translation of this sentence is not shown])

A-9
Measuring Ideology

Table A1. Survey Items for Measuring Ideology

No. Weight Survey Item English Translation

Nationalism Ideology
The government should ban artists who support Taiwan
政府应当禁止支持台独、港独的艺人在大陆地区进行
1 1 independence and Hong Kong independence from performing in
演艺活动。
mainland China.
National unity and territorial integrity should be defended at all
2 1 应该不惜一切代价捍卫国家统一和领土完整。
costs.
应当允许那些经常发表关于中国的负面报道的外国记 Foreign journalists who regularly report about China negatively
3 -1
者进入中国。 should be allowed to enter China.
China should resolutely fight back against certain international
对于有些国际组织针对中国在人权、民主、新闻自由
4 1 organizations' criticism of China in terms of human rights,
等方面的批评， 中国应该坚决予以还击。
democracy, and press freedom.
中国外交战略的核心，应该是与美国为首的西方国家 The core of China's diplomatic strategy should be to maintain
5 -1
处理好关系。 friendly relations with Western countries led by the United States.

Liberalism Ideology
现阶段中国不宜开展普选，因为人民没有足够高的教 China should not adopt universal suffrage at this stage because
1 -1
育水平。 people's level of education is not high enough.
When accidents that have major repercussions for public safety
发生重大社会安全事故时，政府应尽可能公开信息， occur, the government should freely disseminate information even if
2 1
即使信息公开有可能造成大众恐慌。 information disclosure may increase of the risks of widespread
panic.
The media must adhere to the principle of constantly revealing the
媒体的职责是揭露社会丑陋的一面，并不一定要坚持
3 1 dark side of society instead of only providing positive publicity in
以正面宣传为主。
its orientation to reporting.
对于在社交媒体上评论政府的人，如果其言论与事实 The government should prosecute people critics of the government
4 -1
有出入，政府应当追究其责任。 on social media platforms if their criticims are not based on facts.
应当允许人们在互联网上对国家政策发表正面或负面 The government should allow people to express their positive or
5 1
的评价。 negative views toward government policies.

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 A.2. Additional Tables and Figures

Table A2. Balance Table

Family
Major: monthly Nationalism Liberalism
liberal arts income Father: Mother: Father: Mother: Ideology Ideology
Raised in a or social Major: >20K college college managerial managerial (additive (additive
Pre-treatment variables Female large city sciences STEM RMB educated educated position position index) index)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)

Treatment A: Western media 0.093 -0.037 -0.094 0.083 -0.005 -0.087* -0.067 -0.033 -0.082 -0.049 0.016
+ critical comemnts (0.070) (0.059) (0.070) (0.070) (0.070) (0.047) (0.050) (0.069) (0.065) (0.147) (0.140)
Treatment B: Western media -0.029 0.033 -0.108 0.117* 0.077 0.002 0.012 0.040 -0.046 -0.017 -0.016
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.070) (0.055) (0.070) (0.070) (0.069) (0.040) (0.045) (0.070) (0.066) (0.144) (0.142)

Control group mean 0.495*** 0.792*** 0.564*** 0.485*** 0.535*** 0.911*** 0.881*** 0.416*** 0.356*** 0.022 0.004
(0.050) (0.041) (0.050) (0.050) (0.050) (0.028) (0.032) (0.049) (0.048) (0.112) (0.100)
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Observations 306 306 306 306 306 306 306 306 306 306 306
R-squared 0.011 0.005 0.009 0.010 0.006 0.017 0.010 0.004 0.005 0.000 0.000
F test p -value 0.187 0.467 0.247 0.229 0.411 0.122 0.248 0.564 0.456 0.941 0.975
Note: Large cities in column (2) include Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqin, and provincial capitals. Level of statistical significance: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.
 Table A3. Treatment Effects on Regime Support

Additive: support PCA: support Trust in the central Trust in the local
for current system for current system government government
Outcome variables (Mean=0; SD=1) (Mean=0; SD=1) [1, 10] [1, 10]
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Treatment A: Western media -0.013 -0.011 -0.061 -0.076

+ critical comemnts (0.087) (0.087) (0.264) (0.311)
Treatment B: Western media 0.181** 0.176** 0.061 0.419
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.085) (0.084) (0.255) (0.280)

Control group mean -0.074 -0.072 5.830*** 6.191***

(0.060) (0.059) (0.179) (0.200)

Observations 306 306 306 306

R-squared 0.646 0.646 0.535 0.284
Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Level of statistical significance: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. We use Lin (2013)'s
method to control for pre-treatment covariates. They include gender, family income, parents' education and job type, and measures of
nationalism ideology and liberalism ideology.

Table A4. Treatment Effects on Individual Regime Support Items

Although the
political system of Now it seems that
our country has our country's I prefer to live Nothing in
flaws, it is the system is not under my particular needs
most suitable to inferior to those of country's political improving with our
China's current western developed system than other country's current
Outcome variables situation. countries. systems. political system.
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Treatment A: Western media -0.007 0.058 -0.073 -0.022

+ critical comemnts (0.108) (0.128) (0.105) (0.107)
Treatment B: Western media 0.188* 0.207* 0.012 0.223**
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.106) (0.109) (0.113) (0.107)

Control group mean 3.641*** 3.358*** 3.133*** 2.009***

(0.077) (0.076) (0.080) (0.078)

Observations 306 306 306 306

R-squared 0.518 0.433 0.587 0.343
Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Level of statistical significance: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. We use Lin
(2013)'s method to control for pre-treatment covariates. They include gender, family income, parents' education and job type, and
measures of nationalism ideology and liberalism ideology. All outcome variables are on a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree).

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 Table A5. Treatment Effects on Emotion

Outcome variables Sadness Anger

(1) (2)

Treatment A: Western media -0.130* 0.019

+ critical comemnts (0.071) (0.046)
Treatment B: Western media -0.217*** 0.117**
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.065) (0.050)

Control group mean 0.451*** 0.118***

(0.051) (0.031)

Observations 306 306

R-squared 0.102 0.166
Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Level of statistical significance: ***
p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. We use Lin (2013)'s method to control for pre-treatment
covariates. They include gender, family income, parents' education and job type, and
measures of nationalism ideology and liberalism ideology. All outcomes are binary.

Table A6. Treatment Effects on Hypothetical Replies

Commenting
Leaving a on China's Criticizing Using foul
Outcome variables comment challenges US response language
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Treatment A: Western media -0.008 -0.072 0.135*** 0.064***

+ critical comemnts (0.056) (0.055) (0.039) (0.023)
Treatment B: Western media 0.085* -0.169*** 0.074** 0.148***
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.049) (0.046) (0.030) (0.036)

Control group mean 0.807*** 0.223*** 0.012 0.000

(0.037) (0.041) (0.012) (0.000)

Observations 306 306 306 306

R-squared 0.112 0.140 0.095 0.131
Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Level of statistical significance: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, *
p<0.1. We use Lin (2013)'s method to control for pre-treatment covariates. They include gender, family income,
parents' education and job type, and measures of nationalism ideology and liberalism ideology. All outcomes are
binary.

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 Table A7. Treatment Effects on Views on Performance
In general,
Chinese gov.'s Aggressive
The American With its social and
Wuhan gov. reponse to the actions taken people can deal economic power, The main reson for
tried its best to epidemic reflects by the Chinese with the epidemic the US will be able the US poor
control the a high level of gov. bought effectively despite to control the response is its
epidemic at its goverance time for the rest the poor gov. epidemic before president, but the
Outcome variables initial stage. capability. of the world. response. the fall semester. system.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Treatment A: Western media -0.219* 0.054 0.085 -0.243 -0.146 -0.036

+ critical comemnts (0.131) (0.126) (0.120) (0.178) (0.136) (0.166)
Treatment B: Western media -0.032 -0.020 0.041 -0.089 -0.138 -0.015
+ critical & racist comemnts (0.124) (0.128) (0.117) (0.169) (0.142) (0.153)

Control group mean 2.126*** 3.740*** 4.165*** 3.029*** 3.077*** 2.790***

(0.088) (0.087) (0.089) (0.122) (0.104) (0.115)

#Observations 306 306 306 305 305 305

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R-squared 0.252 0.312 0.205 0.074 0.105 0.115

Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Level of statistical significance: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. We use Lin (2013)'s method to
control for pre-treatment covariates. They include gender, family income, parents' education and job type, and measures of nationalism ideology and
liberalism ideology. All outcome variables are on a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
 Figure A1. Views toward Government Responses:
by US and China Samples
70

70

70

70
China Sample China Sample China Sample China Sample
US Sample US Sample US Sample US Sample
60

60

60

60
50

50

50

50
Proportion of Respondents

Proportion of Respondents

Proportion of Respondents

Proportion of Respondents
40

40

40

40
30

30

30

30
20

20

20

20
10

10

10

10
0

0
Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well Very Badly Badly Well Very Well

(a) China (b) United States (c) Japan (d) South Korea
Note: The above figures show the respondents’ views toward government performance in handing the
covid-19 in China (a), United States (b), Japan (c), and South Korea (d). Respondents were asked to
answer on a 1-4 Likert scale: “How do you think [country name] government’s response to the covid-19
epidemic?”

Figure A2. Nationalism Ideology and Predicted Regime Support:

by Treatment Assignment
Control Treatment A Treatment B

1 1 1
Predicted Regime Support Index

0 0 0

−1 −1 −1

−2 −2 −2
0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
Moderator: Nationalism Ideology (Percentile)
Note: The above figures show the predicted value of the regime support index as a function of nationalism
ideology by in each of the three treatment groups. The figures are based on kernels regressions proposed
by Hainmueller, Mummolo and Xu (2019). A bigger number on the x-axis represents a more nationalistic
view). Confidence intervals are based on bootstrapping of 1,000 times.

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 Figure A3. Marginal Effects of Treatment B on Regime Support:
by Liberalism Ideology
Regime Support Index Trust in Central Government Trust in Local Government
2
1.0 1.0

1
0.5 0.5
Marginal Effects

Marginal Effects

Marginal Effects
0.0 0.0 0

−0.5 −0.5
−1

−1.0 −1.0
−2
0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
Moderator: Liberalism Moderator: Liberalism Moderator: Liberalism

Note: The above figures show the marginal effects of Treatment B (relative to the Control condition)
by liberalism ideology (in percentile). A bigger number on the x-axis represents a more politically liberal
tendency). Confidence intervals are based on bootstrapping of 1,000 times. All outcomes are standardized
(Mean = 0; SD = 1). We include gender, family income, parents’ education and job type, nationalism
ideology, as well as their interactions with the treatment indicators, in the kernel estimation.

Figure A4. Marginal Effects of Treatments A and B on Regime Support:

by Difference in Performance Perception
Regime Support Index Regime Support Index

0.5 0.5
Marginal Effects

Marginal Effects

0.0 0.0

−0.5 −0.5

0 25 50 75 0 25 50 75
Moderator: Difference in Perceived Moderator: Difference in Perceived
Performance (China − US) Performance (China − US)

(a) Treatment A (b) Treatment B

Note: The above figures show the marginal effects of Treatments A and B (relat-
ive to the Control condition) on the regime support index by difference in perceived
performance (China - US). The moderator is transformed into rankings (in percentile).
Confidence intervals are based on bootstrapping of 1,000 times. The outcome variable
is standardized (Mean = 0; SD = 1). We include gender, family income, parents’ edu-
cation and job type, nationalism and liberalism ideology, as well as their interactions
with the treatment indicators, in the kernel estimation.

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