US public’s opinion of China hits 20-year low, Gallup poll says

Survey finds only a third of US citizens regard China favourably, hitting late-1990s lows and a point below Gallup’s figures after 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown

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Polling company Gallup’s latest survey of US public opinion finds that only a third of Americans have a positive view of China. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:26pm, 3 Mar 2020Updated: 7:56pm, 3 Mar 2020

The proportion of Americans who view China favourably has fallen to its lowest in two decades, down 20 percentage points since 2018 and below levels after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.

A telephone survey by the US polling firm from February 3-16 questioned 1,028 adults and found that 33 per cent had a favourable opinion of China, matching record-low readings from 1997 and 2000.

The latest figure is lower than the 34 per cent level reported after Beijing sent troops to fire on student-led protesters in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. According to Gallup, 72 per cent of US citizens had a positive view of China before those events in Beijing.

“Americans’ views of China have rarely been positive over the past four decades, but they have never held the country in lower regard than they do today,” Jeffrey Jones, senior editor at Gallup, wrote on its website. “With the two nations embroiled in a major trade battle, among other issues, Americans are likely to continue to view China unfavourably until tensions subside on some fronts.”

The rivalry between Beijing and Washington has intensified over the past year, with a prolonged trade war, disputes over technology and intellectual property, and frictions with ideology and competing interests in the Indo-Pacific region.

Favourability among Americans towards China in 2020 fell eight points compared with in 2019, amid headlines about Washington’s accusations of political and religious repression in places such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and worries about the outbreak of a coronavirus that spread in December from central China.