Negative Views Of China Remain High In New Pew Survey Of 19 Countries

Negative views of China, the world’s No. 2 economy, remain at or near historic highs in many of 19 countries included a new Pew Research Center survey released today.

The survey, conducted between Feb. 13 and June 3, found that a median of 68% of respondents said they have an unfavorable view of China. Americans with a negative view climbed to a record 82% of those surveyed compared with 76% a year ago and 79% in 2020.

Unfavorable opinions of the country are related to concerns about China’s policies on human rights, the research organization found.

Among the four issues asked about in the survey – China’s policies on human rights, China’s military power, economic competition with China and China’s involvement in domestic politics in each country, more people labeled human rights policies as a very serious problem than other areas, according to Pew. A median of 79% consider these human rights policies a serious problem, and 47% say they are a very serious problem, Pew said.

The emphasis on human rights was notable among Western countries. When asked to choose between promoting human rights in China and strengthening economic ties with China, majorities in the U.S., Canada and nearly all of the European countries surveyed said human rights should be prioritized over economic relations, Pew said.

Just this week, G7 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union criticized China’s ties with Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and called on Beijing to “respect universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, including in Tibet and in Xinjiang where forced labor is of major concern to us.”

For its part, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said on May 22 that “China has made remarkable achievements in respecting and protecting human rights in various aspects over the past few years,” noting progress in healthcare and poverty relief. “There is no end to human rights protection, as there is always room for improvement.”

In a Forbes interview in May, Beijing’s Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang said Pew’s survey “failed to give people a whole picture of China-U.S. relations, particularly people-to-people relations,” Qin said. “It’s not objective.” (See interview here.)

Despite broadly unfavorable opinions about China, majorities in over half of the countries surveyed still think relations between their country and the China are currently in good shape. A median of 62% surveyed say current relations between their country and China are good, and a median of only 32% say relations are bad.

That latter notably included the United States, however; some 70% of Americans say relations with China are bad, Pew said. That was topped by only Australia (83%), Japan (81%) and South Korea (74%).

Many in the 19 countries surveyed think China’s international influence is getting stronger, Pew found. A median of 66% across the 19 countries surveyed say China’s influence in the world has been getting stronger – as opposed to getting weaker or staying about the same – in recent years.

Economic competition with China is seen as less of a serious problem. While a median of 66% say it is at least somewhat serious, while only 30% consider it very serious, Pew said.

U.S.-China business ties are “better than the headlines,” Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, said in a Forbes interview last Friday. (See interview link here.)

Pew surveyed covered 19 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. Views of China, its president, its bilateral relations and its policies on human rights are examined in the context of long-term trend data.

For non-U.S. data, the report draws on nationally representative surveys of 20,944 adults from Feb. 14 to June 3, 2022. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. Surveys were conducted face to face in Hungary, Poland and Israel and online in Australia.

In the United States, it surveyed 3,581 U.S. adults from March 21 to 27, 2022. Pew first disclosed the main results of the U.S. survey in May.

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