Protecting Farmers and Workers in Socialist Market Transitions: Mass Attitudes Toward Imports in Asia

After decades of market liberalization in Asian countries, how do people see trade, mainly imports, as potentially hurting domestic production? Do they consider them a threat to their societies’ less privileged groups? Using survey data of China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and citing Thailand as a comparative case representing a liberal economy in the Southeast Asian region, we examine the effect of economic interests, collectivist ideology, and political trust on trade preferences. Empirical results indicate that economic optimism is only weakly related to attitudinal openness to imports, while income has a mixed effect. Collectivism and political trust in the central government and the elite stimulate antipathy against imports. The findings shed light on the sources of protectionist attitudes in Asian authoritarian regimes undergoing socialist market transition among the general public.