Sixty-six percent of Americans have negative views of China, while only 26% have a favorable opinion, marking a significant change towards the country in the past few years and the most negative rating for the country since the question was first asked in 2005, according to a poll released by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday.
Just two years ago in a 2018 survey only 47% of Americans said their opinion of China was negative and 44% had favorable views.
Sixty-two percent also saw China as a major threat to the United States, up from 48 percent in the previous poll.
Other results from the survey include:
- Among Republicans, 72% held an unfavorable view of China, compared to 62% of Democratic voters.
- Among those who are at least 50 years old, 71 percent said their view of China is negative, compared to only 43% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 who held this opinion.
- Positive views of Chinese President Xi Jinping also are at historically low levels, with 71% of Americans having no confidence in him to do the right thing regarding world affairs and only 22% who expressed confidence in him.
- This represents a sharp decline in views of the Chinese's president, as last year 50% expressed no faith in him and 37% said they did have confidence in Xi.
The latest poll was taken between March 3-29, as the coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, Chin, spread throughout the United States. It was conducted among 1,000 adult Americans nationwide and has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.