BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Foreigners believe Chinese cuisine is the factor that best represents Chinese culture, according to the 2016-2017 China National Image Global Survey released Friday.

Jointly conducted by the Center for International Communication Studies under the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, and Kantar Millward Brown and Lightspeed, the survey interviewed citizens in 22 countries, with 500 respondents from each country.

Among the 11,000 surveyed, 52 percent picked Chinese cuisine as a representative of Chinese culture, with almost 80 percent saying they had tried it, 72 percent of whom spoke highly of it.

Chinese medicine and martial arts also stood out as significant representatives of Chinese culture, picked by 47 and 44 percent, respectively.

About 64 percent of the respondents who said they had tried Chinese medicine gave it the thumbs up.