“Few Americans have confidence in Xi to do the right thing in world affairs, including nearly half who say they have no confidence at all in him,” Pew said, in a new poll on China’s global image released Wednesday.
Notably, nearly 40% of Americans view Xi’s China as an “enemy,” up 13 percentage points from a year ago. Just 6% see China as a partner.
As with everything, the survey results reflected America’s partisan divide, or at least as it relates to characterizing China as an outright antagonist. Just half as many Democrats described Beijing as an enemy compared to Republicans.
And yet, the combined share identifying China as either an “enemy” or a “competitor” was virtually identical, and it was notable that the share of Democrats willing to give Xi the benefit of the doubt by describing his country as a “partner” dropped to 7% last month, from 14% two years ago.
The poll was conducted at a time when Sino-US relations are extraordinarily fraught thanks to Xi’s increasingly bellicose position on Taiwan, concerns over Beijing’s strategic partnership with Moscow and the perception that China is angling to supplant the US as global hegemon.
Two-thirds of Americans said China’s partnership with Russia represents a “very serious” problem for the US, while the share who said tensions between Xi and Taiwan are a matter of serious concern for America rose to a record 47%, up nearly 20 percentage points in just two years.
Last week, Tsai Ing-wen met with Kevin McCarthy in L.A. It was her second meeting with America’s third-ranking US government official in eight months. The PLA promptly conducted military drills, including a simulated blockade, just as they did when Nancy Pelosi visited the island last year.
In the Pew poll, more than eight in 10 said China’s tech prowess was a problem for the US. Americans support a TikTok ban by a more than two-to-one margin. Recall that some political strategists suggested banning the popular app would have domestic political consequences. I’m skeptical of that contention. Last month, TikTok CEO Shou Chew tried to reassure Congress regarding lawmakers’ national security concerns. It didn’t go especially well.
The same survey showed nine in 10 Americans distrust Chinese social media in general. (Amusingly, 75% distrust American social media.)
I could go on, but you get the point. One final note: China is an issue on which America’s political extremes sometimes agree. As Pew noted, “conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats are both more likely than their more moderate counterparts to consider human rights policies in China a very serious problem.”
The donald is a bigger threat than Xi. He still thinks these overlord types are really cool. What I get from this poll is Americans sense they are losing their grip on being the world’s go-to “boss.” Few want to see that as a reality because it reduces their sense of security (IMHO). We couldn’t beat the Viet Kong. We couldn’t win in Iraq — it’s still a mess. We couldn’t win in Afghanistan — the Taliban were in charge a week after we left. Leaving proved that to folks who don’t like Biden. Leaving all these places without a satisfying “win” would seem to indicate to many that we are no longer the world’s strong man. We’re not. Right now no one is. A physical confrontation with China is sheer lunacy. Sure they commit human rights violations, but so do we, every day. To deny that is to not care about those who are violated every day.