More Americans want govt to curtail China's clout: Pew survey

Rise in number of people who view East Asian giant as an enemy

- Michelle Ng

Nearly half of Americans feel that limiting China's power and influence should be the United States' top foreign policy priority, and more people are increasingly viewing the East Asian giant as an enemy, a new Pew Research Centre survey showed.

About 49 per cent of those polled said curtailing China's clout should be the top priority of the US government, while 42 per cent said this should be given some priority.

Just 8 per cent said it was not of vital importance.

Forty-two per cent of the participants described China as an enemy, up from 38 per cent in the last survey conducted in 2023. This was the largest proportion since the question was introduced in the 2021 edition of the Pew survey.

Half of the respondents saw China as a competitor, while only 6 per cent viewed it as a partner.

When asked about the state of US-China relations, respondents offered largely negative assessments, with broad concerns about China's role in the world, both geopolitically and economically.

The representative survey, which was published on May 1, polled 3,600 American adults from April 1 to 7.

China observers told The Straits Times that the American public's negative sentiment seen in the survey findings is largely a reflection of the bipartisan consensus in the US against China that has been building since at least the previous administration.

Singapore Institute of International Affairs senior fellow Oh Ei Sun said that since Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017, many Americans have increasingly viewed China as taking away their jobs, stealing American technological secrets and challenging American superiority.