believe me they see it, a couple years back you could ask Chinese people in the street what they thought of Americans and a lot would answer that they like the fact that they are more "free" and "open minded". There's a bunch of videos like that on youtube [1][2]. Nowadays I don't think people would say the same stuff[3].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gqXLxCU-fY