A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that an increasing number of Americans view China (the CCP) as an enemy, believing that limiting Beijing’s power and influence should be a top priority of U.S. foreign policy.
The survey, conducted in early April among over 3,600 American adults, revealed its findings on April 25th. Approximately 42% of respondents consider China (the CCP) as an enemy, marking the highest percentage since the center began posing this question in 2021, with a 4% increase from the previous year.
Another 50% of Americans see China as a competitor, slightly lower than the previous year. Only 6% of people view China as a partner to the United States, a proportion that remains unchanged.
Researchers at the Pew Research Center wrote in their report, “The vast majority of Americans have negative views of China, believing that China’s influence is growing, expressing concerns about China’s relations with its neighboring countries, and generally holding distrust towards the Chinese Communist Party leadership.”
The survey found that 81% of people hold negative views towards China, a decrease of two percentage points from a year ago. The sampling error is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
A vast majority of Americans (82%) believe that China has at least a considerable impact on the U.S. economy, with most considering this impact negative.
71% of respondents agree that China’s influence in the world has been increasing in recent years, up from 66% in 2022.
Around half of the respondents indicated that containing China (the CCP) should be a top priority of U.S. foreign policy. Generally, Republicans place more emphasis on limiting China (the CCP) compared to Democrats, but the gap between the two parties on this issue is narrowing.
Additionally, about 61% of Americans stated that they are at least somewhat concerned about territorial disputes between China (the CCP) and its neighboring countries, with 20% of respondents saying they are very concerned.
The current U.S.-China relationship is becoming clearer, with Washington and the CCP government continuing to clash on issues such as trade, overcapacity, and the South China Sea, and this year’s U.S. presidential election may bring new turmoil.
In recent weeks, President Biden has called the CCP “hostile” and pledged to impose triple tariffs on certain Chinese metal exports. He also signed legislation that could lead to a nationwide ban on the TikTok social media app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
【This article referenced reporting by Bloomberg】