American Views Of China Worsen; Distrust Of Its Social Media Platforms Is Widespread — Pew Research

Unfavorable views of China held by Americans have worsened in the past year, according to a new poll released today by the Pew Research Center that focuses on China.

Some 83% of U.S. adults have negative views of China, up from 82% a year ago, Pew said. The share with “very unfavorable” views increased by four percentage points from a year ago to 44%, the center said.

Americans broadly distrust Chinese social media companies, which as a group rank among the world’s largest. “Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) said they have little or no confidence in them to follow what their privacy policies say they will do with personal information, including 59% who say they have no confidence at all,” Pew found.

That skepticism underlies support by more than two-to-one a U.S. government ban on TikTok, Pew said. “This support is related to views on China: Those who are aware that the app’s parent company, ByteDance, is located in China and those who have unfavorable views of the country are much more likely to support a ban of the social media platform,” Pew found.

Around four-in-10 Americans now see China as an enemy of the U.S., rather than a competitor or partner, up by 13 percentage points from a year ago, Pew found. Just 14% of those polled had a positive view of China – the lowest share recorded since the Pew survey switched to an online panel in 2005, Pew said today.

Older Americans have more negative views of China than younger ones: 91% of those ages 65 and older say they have an unfavorable opinion, compared with 75% of those 18 to 29, Pew said in the new survey. Although older Americans’ negative feelings of China have remained largely unchanged in recent years, younger adults have turned more negative over the past two years, increasing from 68% to 75% unfavorable, it said.

“People are broadly concerned about China’s role in the world, both geopolitically and in terms of specific issues,” Pew said.

“For example, in the wake of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, 62% of Americans see the China-Russia partnership as a very serious problem for the U.S., up five points since October and back to the original high levels seen in the immediate aftermath of the Ukraine invasion in 2022,” it said.

A growing share of Americans are concerned about tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, Pew said. Nearly half of U.S. adults (47%) say tensions between the two are a very serious problem for the U.S., up 19 points since February 2021. China this month conducted military exercises around Taiwan this month following a meeting between Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Taipei said today Beijing declared a “no-fly zone” in a busy transportation corridor north of Taiwan this Sunday (see post here).

The latest Pew poll out today about American views of China comes on the heels of a Pew survey released earlier this month that found about two-thirds – 65% — of Americans either “not too confident” or “not at all confident” in President Joe Biden’s ability to deal effectively with China. Some 37% expressed no confidence at all; 28% said they were not too confident.

Nevertheless, Americans were 10 percentage points more likely in the new poll to call the U.S. the world’s leading economic power than China, a significant change from last year when the two were seen as equally powerful, Pew said. China’s GDP growth last year slid in connection with its “zero-Covid” policies.

Asked who benefits most from U.S.-China trade – the U.S., China, both countries or neither – nearly half of Americans (47%) say China benefits more. Only 7% think the U.S. benefits most, according to Pew. Under a quarter of Americans (23%) said that both countries benefit equally. Amid conflict over trade in semiconductors, Beijing earlier this month announced a cybersecurity review of U.S. chipmaker Micron aimed protecting the country’s information infrastructure and national security. (See related post here.) More optimistically, Elon Musk’s Tesla over the weekend announced a new plant in Shanghai.

When asked about five possible areas for cooperation between the U.S. and China, Americans expressed skepticism about partnering on most, Pew said. “Americans are more likely than not to say the U.S. and China cannot work together to resolve international conflicts (54%) or cooperate on climate change policy (52%),” it found. “The U.S. and China previously issued a joint climate agreement in 2021, and climate talks between the two countries resumed late last year after being suspended over Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.”

Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party are more likely to hold an unfavorable opinion of China (89%) than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (81%). U.S. adults with a college degree or higher education (87%) are also more likely to have an unfavorable opinion of China than those with only some college or less (82%).

For the poll, Pew from March 20-26, 2023 surveyed 3,576 adult members of its American Trends Panel, an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories, Pew said.

See related posts:

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@rflannerychina