More Americans concerned China’s rise is threat to US national interest than any time since 1990: survey

In the highest recorded level of concern since the council first asked the question in 1990, most respondents (58 per cent) consider China’s rise a crucial threat to the vital interest of the US, this year’s survey showed.

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When asked to specify the areas of greatest concern regarding China, 23 per cent pointed to China’s economic power, followed by its Communist political system, its human rights policy and its military power.

Craig Kafura, an assistant director for public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said the 30-year peak in concern about the rise of China’s power was “certainly striking”.

Americans’ concerns about China “are more heavily weighted toward economic issues rather than the security/military issues that tend to dominate [Washington DC] discourse,” Kafura said.

According to the survey, a similar percentage of respondents regards the US as the stronger economic power (33 per cent) as those who view China as more dominant (32 per cent) and those who say they are equal (33 per cent).

“American concerns about China have long included trade issues. Since 2002, a majority of Americans have consistently viewed China as an unfair trading partner. More recently, Americans have come to view China’s economic power as a critical threat to the United States,” Kafura wrote in the report.

“While US-China competition has expanded to include other realms, the economic component remains a prominent factor in Americans’ minds,” he added

Concerns about China’s growing economic strength and views of US-China trade as damaging US national security, have led many Americans to support policies to cut the exchange of goods and technologies between the two countries.

However, according to the latest survey, nearly two-thirds of respondents said the US did not go far enough in response to Chinese firms stealing US intellectual property.

Many believe current US trade policies towards China do not benefit American job creation, the US economy, American companies operating in China and US national security.

Compared with their worries in the economic sphere, more Americans surveyed seemed confident in US military supremacy – 46 per cent said the US was stronger than its counterpart while 15 per cent said China was stronger.

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The survey suggests Americans appear to have lost trust in China being a responsible power to handle global problems. Some 19 per cent said they would have “a great deal” (3 per cent) or “a fair amount” (16 per cent) of confidence in China dealing responsibly with world problems – a sharp drop from 41 per cent five years ago.

In the lead-up to the expected summit between presidents Xi and Biden this week, Kafura said a simple meeting between the two leaders was unlikely to change Americans’ views on China “without the visit accompanying significant progress on issues important to the American people”.

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On Tuesday, Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, reported that Xi and Biden were set to announce an agreement that would see Beijing crack down on the manufacture and export of fentanyl during their in-person meeting on Wednesday.

Kafura said such a deal would be a “good sign” in US-China relations, although he was cautious about the prospect of a sudden, sharp turnaround in American attitudes.

“Americans’ views of China have declined for years at a steady pace, and it will take years of continued improvements to rebuild American confidence and trust in China.”