A new poll from Gallup finds that a record-low 15% of Americans view China favorably. China has been gradually falling in the U.S. public's esteem in recent years, Gallup notes, and is down a total of 38 points since 2018. More than 8-in-10 U.S. adults have a negative opinion of China, including 45% who view it very unfavorably, and 39% mostly unfavorably.
Americans' opinion of China has been worsening since 2018, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, and it has now reached a new low in Gallup's trend of more than four decades.
China has been in the news a lot lately for withholding information about the laboratory in Wuhan where COVID-19 is thought to originate, spying on the United States, making threats against Taiwan, and cooperating with Russia while it fights a war against Ukraine.
Growing friction between China and the U.S. in the past few years has resulted in sharp upticks in the percentages of Americans who consider China's military and economic powers to represent critical threats to U.S. interests, Gallup notes.
Republicans are particularly critical of China. They overwhelmingly name it as the United States' greatest enemy and are more likely than Democrats and independents to consider its military and economic powers to be threats to the U.S. But a majority Democrats also have a negative view of China.
China's favorable rating has fallen sharply in recent years among Republicans, Democrats and independents, and is now at its lowest point for each group. Republicans' 6% rating is the lowest of the three, while Democrats' and independents' ratings are 17% and 18%, respectively.
Americans' assessment of China's military power has been measured seven times since 2004. Currently, 66% of U.S. adults consider it to be a critical threat to the vital interests of the U.S., while 27% think it is an important but not critical threat, and 6% say it is not an important threat. The share of Americans who think China's military is a critical threat remains high; before last year, it had never exceeded 51%.
Although majorities of Republicans (80%), Democrats (55%) and independents (65%) view China's military power as a critical threat to the U.S., Republicans are by far the most likely to see it as such.
The percentages of Republicans (81%) and independents (63%) who think China's economic power is a critical U.S. threat are nearly identical to each group's views of China's military power. However, Democrats are slightly less likely to consider China's economy as a threat (49%) than its military.
Communist China considers democratic Taiwan to be a breakaway province. More than three-quarters of U.S. adults, 77%, have a favorable opinion of the island nation. This rating is the highest of the eight readings Gallup has taken since 1996 and is five points higher than the previous one in 2021.
Majorities of Republicans (78%), Democrats (81%) and independents (75%) have a positive view of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, 47% of Americans say the conflict between China and Taiwan is a critical threat to the United States' vital interests in the next decade, a trend high. Another 42% rate it as an important but not critical threat, and 10% consider it not important.
The latest survey was completed before the U.S. announced it would sell more than $600 million worth of arms to Taiwan to support its defense capabilities.
The latest data are from Gallup's Feb. 1-23 annual World Affairs poll, during which tensions between the U.S. and China rose when Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a diplomatic trip after a Chinese surveillance balloon was discovered flying over the U.S. Toward the end of the poll's field period, Blinken spoke publicly about U.S. concerns that China is considering providing weapons to Russia in its war against Ukraine. The poll was completed before FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency had concluded that COVID-19 likely came from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 1-23, 2023, with a random sample of 1,008 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is plus/minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
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