Results of a sociological survey by WCIOM devoted to the study of the attitude of Russians to the idea of cooperation with the countries of the East in the new reality.

Most Russians find it difficult to say with which Asian states they should develop cooperation in the economic, political and cultural spheres.

The Russians rather find it difficult to clearly define with which of the eastern countries cooperation should be built. Thus, 44.8% of the respondents who took part in the study found it difficult to answer which Asian countries come to their mind in the context of strengthening cultural cooperation. 30.9% could not say about the states in the context of political cooperation, and 24.8% — within the framework of trade and economic cooperation.

The economic expansion of Asian business in recent years has gone almost unnoticed by Russians.

The knowledge of Russians about the companies that own well-known international brands is also contradictory: for example, respondents more often indicate the country of origin of the brand, but much less correctly identify the country of the company to which the brand currently belongs. The expansion of companies from Eastern countries to Western markets in the 2010s, which was accompanied by the acquisition of large enterprises, was not noticed. For example, the Indian corporation Tata bought the Jaguar-Land Rover concern, and the Chinese Lenovo owns the Motorola company.

In fact, Russians often do not know that they already use products from the countries of the East and there is no direct correlation between their attitude towards a particular brand and their attitude towards the producing country. For example, people in Russia do not know that the Volvo brand belongs to the Chinese automaker Geely.

We also invite you to familiarize yourself with other materials posted in special sections of the Roscongress Information and Analytical System Consumer Sentiment and Globalization/regionalization dedicated to the development of Russia’s foreign trade.