China's official Global Times reacted strongly to a report entitled "China's Ideological Spectrum," authored by two students from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), using material from a survey covering 171,000 respondents in 29 provinces, cities and autonomous regions in China. The report concluded that the wealthier are "liberal" (right) while the poorer tend to be "conservative" (left) and "neutral." They also said that coastal areas with higher levels of economic development are mostly liberal regions, while the majority of individuals in the less developed provinces and cities in the central and western areas are conservative.

The Global Times suspected that the report was published with ulterior motives and had been specially "customized" for certain political ends. It castigated the report "China's Ideological Spectrum" for creating "a spurious impression of an "ideological gap" among different regions in China, which gravely contravenes both common sense and practical experience" It stressed that "China is led by the Chinese Communist Party and China's political system is highly effective in the Chinese mainland with no region held as an exception. And there is no concentrated area for so-called "leftist" or "rightist" groups in China". Asserting that "Foreign fallacies have constantly penetrated Chinese public opinion", the Global Times urged that "Domestic Chinese scholars as well as the media should spare no effort to expose them so as to the set the record straight".