By Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON, Jun 18 (IPS) - Despite its steady rise as a global power, China still falls behind the U.S. in its regional sway in East Asia, according to a survey of countries in the region released Tuesday.

The survey, "Soft Power in Asia: Results of a 2008 Multinational Survey of Public Opinion", published by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the East Asia Institute of South Korea, polled citizens of five East Asian countries and the U.S. to determine their viability as regional actors using soft power.

The term soft power describes cultural, diplomatic or ideological means towards influencing other nations, as opposed to hard power -- the use of direct economic incentives and military force.

The U.S. image abroad -- and therefore its capital to influence other nations -- has been plummeting over the past seven years under Pres. George W. Bush as he unilaterally launched the Iraq War, which was deeply unpopular even among some allies.

But according to the Chicago Council paper, China -- even with a booming economy and recent efforts to build regional influence -- still lags behind the U.S. in regional pull.

"The report has produced a number of counterintuitive and -- you might call them -- counter popular findings," said David Shambaugh, a professor at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, which hosted the launch. "American soft power in Asia remains extremely robust despite questions over the last eight years about American diplomatic commitment to the region."

"China's soft power is not nearly as great as it's cracked up to be," he said.

In an index developed to analyse poll results by combining all the soft power areas, respondents in four of the countries -- excluding the U.S. and China -- all ranked the U.S. as wielding soft power with more strength than the Chinese.

Japan and South Korea placed the U.S. first in terms of soft power. Indonesia and Vietnam ranked it second, but first place was given to Japan -- not China.

In fact, it was U.S. respondents themselves who seemed to underestimate the power that their nation wields in East Asia, with half saying that U.S. influence had remained about the same.

Most Indonesians, and nearly half of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean respondents -- all by significant pluralities -- thought that U.S. influence had increased.

But the more pessimistic take of U.S. citizens and their reservations about a growing Chinese role in the region were clearly visible from the polls.

The average U.S. rating of favourable feelings towards China, scaled 1 to 100, registered at 35 -- a five-point drop from two years ago and down nine points from surveys four years ago.

In what Christopher Whitney, the executive director of studies at the Chicago Council, called troubling "divergent perceptions", the Chinese view the U.S. more favourably by a 10-point margin than two years ago.

Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution said the surprisingly robust levels of U.S. influence should be taken with a grain of salt.

"On the surface, the results of this poll are refreshing for an American," said Bush. But from the vantage point of a U.S. foreign policy official, Bush confessed to "a feeling of unease".

"Soft power is a tricky thing," warned Bush. The survey gathered the opinions of the target countries' publics. As a policy maker, Bush is more interested in foreign interlocutors of policy officials -- governments and elites.

Soft power, said Bush, citing Harvard professor Joseph Nye who coined the term, is about "setting the agenda".

"Gradually and imperceptibly, [the U.S. has] been losing the role of setting the agenda in Asia," said Bush. "At this stage we have to be willing to do a lot of listening."

He also cautioned that while the marks were good, they weren't that high in the big picture. For the category of how well diplomacy is used as a means of soft power, the U.S. received its highest ranking from Indonesia -- a 6.6 out of 10.

"The views of U.S. diplomatic soft power -- if you look at them -- aren't that great," said Bush, noting that the 6.6 score didn't seem to him to be "that ringing of an endorsement."

But Marshall Bouton, the president of the Chicago Council, demurred. He suggested that surveys like this elicit cautious responses and show "regression to the mean".

A score of 6.6 is "up there in the bigger quartile or the bigger decile" of the range of scores, said Bush, suggesting that responses are unlikely to get much higher.

All the participants, though, agreed that the U.S. role in the region remains extremely important to its positive growth and good relations between the various countries.

Hefty majorities of respondents in all countries said that should the U.S. pull its armed forces from the region, or an arms race would erupt between Japan and China.

A positive point, said Shambaugh, was improved Sino-Japanese relations. Majorities in both countries -- contravening conventional wisdom based on history and previous opinion polls -- view each other's influence as "very" or "somewhat" positive.

"East Asia is simply not stable unless China-Japan relations are stable," said Shambaugh. "The Chinese now welcome a regional role for Japan. [They] are no longer trying to keep the Japanese in a box."

In another positive regional development, South Korea has been carving out a soft power niche for itself in the region.

Gordon Flake, a Korea expert and the executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said that Korean interest and efforts are clear from their investment in, co-sponsorship of, and support for the very Chicago Council survey being discussed.