Washington – The Americans continue to have an unfavorable opinion on China, but for the first time in five years, their attitudes have somewhat softened, with a decline on the part of those who consider him an enemy of the United States, showed an investigation by the Washington Pew Research Center.
The survey, carried out in the midst of American-Chinese trade tensions, revealed that more than half of all Americans say that pricing hikes will be worse than good for the United States and for themselves, while a major majority (75%) will have little or no confidence that Chinese President Xi Jinping will do the right thing with regard to international affairs.
According to the survey, which was published Thursday, 77% of all Americans have an “unfavorable opinion” of China – against 81% in 2024 during the first significant drop from one year to the next registered since 2017 – reporting an apparent softening in the overall American feeling of China.
In this case, the part of the Americans who have a “very unfavorable opinion” of the largest geopolitical rival in the United States decreased by 10 percentage points to 33%.
The part of the Americans who consider China as an “enemy” of the United States also decreased to 33%, compared to 42% a year earlier.
When he asked him an open question on which country represented the greatest threat to the United States, 42% of Americans named China. But this is also down 50% in 2023.
Americans are more likely to have negative views of China, the results of the older and more conservative survey have shown the results of the survey.
Older Americans are much more likely than young adults to call China an enemy, with 47% of people aged 65 and over and 40% of people aged 50 to 64 holding this point of view, against 19% of those in the 18-29 age group.
In comparison, young Americans are most likely to consider China as a competitor, 61% of adults under the age of 30 say it.
Among the Republicans and the self -employed of the Republicans, attitudes towards China soften even if they remained more critical of the country than Democrats and Democratic respondents, the investigation revealed.
The percentage of Republicans who have an “unfavorable opinion” of China fell 8 percentage points, to 82%, with a drop of 16 points to 43% among those who have a “very unfavorable” vision.
In comparison, 72% of Democrats have an unfavorable opinion, of which 24% which have a “very unfavorable” opinion, against 30% in 2024.
The PEW survey was based on the responses of 3,605 American adults who were interviewed from March 24 to 30 using random sampling of residential addresses with demographic weighting to represent the American adult population.
See on pricing increases
Before the survey was presented, US President Donald Trump had imposed – in February and early March – prices totaling 20% on imports from China quoting his role in the fentanyl trade. China retaliated with prices on American agricultural products and other measures.
Since then, in the climbing of the tariff increases of Tit-For-Tat which followed, Trump imposed 145% prices on Chinese imports, while Beijing responded with 125%.
The PEW survey data has shown that the Americans remain skeptical about the effects of increased prices on China, 52% saying that they will be bad for the United States, and a similar part (53%) saying that they will be bad for them too.
Only 24% of Americans think that increased prices will be good for the United States and only 10% say that it will be good for them personally, according to the survey.
And yet, 46% of Americans say that trade between the two largest economies in the world benefits China more, according to the results of the survey.
Published by Greg Barber