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US-China relations
China

More Americans view China as an enemy, new Pew survey shows

  • Four out of five people who responded to the poll say their opinion of mainland China is unfavourable, about the same as last year
  • Older Americans have more hawkish attitudes, while those under age 29 don’t think limits on China’s power and influence should be a top priority

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About 42 per cent of survey respondents said China was an enemy of the US, the largest share since Pew began asking the question in 2021. Illustration: Shutterstock
Robert Delaneyin Washington

Roughly four-fifths of Americans have an unfavourable view of China and an increasing number see it as an enemy, according to data released on Wednesday, which showed older Americans and Republicans holding the most hawkish opinions about the country.

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While the 81 per cent of respondents declaring an unfavourable view of China in Pew Research Centre’s survey is slightly lower than the 83 per cent registered a year ago, the numbers are about even when including the statistical margin of error, said Christine Huang, one of the authors of the survey report.

That unfavourable number has bounced in a 79 per cent to 83 per cent range for the past five years. The number of Americans with a favourable view of China has fallen within a 14 per cent to 21 per cent range, with this year’s coming in at 16 per cent.

The divergence was as narrow as 47 per cent unfavourable versus 43 per cent favourable in 2017, when Donald Trump became US president after running on a platform that said China took jobs from Americans.
The Trump administration initiated a trade war and imposed sanctions on mainland Chinese and Hong Kong government officials, and it said China’s response to Covid-19 exacerbated the pandemic during Trump’s final year in office.
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