More Americans view China unfavorably than ever before, according to a new
survey by the Pew Research Center.
A total of 82 percent of U.S. adults reported that they held an unfavorable view of China, according to the poll, with 92 percent reporting that they thought China’s deepening partnership with Russia posed a problem for the United States.
Vitally, about two-thirds of the more than 3,500 people surveyed in March described China as a major threat to the United States, a 23-point increase since the question was first asked by Pew in 2013.
Sino–American relations have continued to sink in recent years as a range of issues has brought the nations to loggerheads time and again.
President Joe Biden
told Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping that there would be “consequences” if China continued its apparent
support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The United States has also been increasingly concerned about the regime’s escalated military harassment of Taiwan, a self-ruled island that the CCP views as a Chinese territory. The communist regime has vowed to unite Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Washington is obliged under federal law to ensure that Taiwan has the military means to adequately defend itself.
Another area of contention is the CCP’s continued
campaign of economic and cyber espionage against the United States. The FBI has estimated that it opens a new China-related counterintelligence investigation about every 12 hours and that there are more than 2,000 such investigations currently ongoing, utilizing resources from all 56 U.S.-based FBI field offices.
Relatedly, the Department of Justice recently
announced several high-profile criminal cases in which it alleges that Chinese agents systematically attempted to stalk, harass, and intimidate Americans of Chinese descent.
One of those cases included an alleged plot to
attack a U.S. Army veteran in order to prevent him from running for Congress. Another dealt with a
scheme to stalk, surveil, and blackmail a U.S. Olympic figure skater and her father to ensure they wouldn’t speak out against the regime’s human rights abuses.
The results of the survey appear to indicate a broad agreement among U.S. adults with the opinions of senior intelligence officials that the CCP is currently the single greatest
threat to the United States.
