US public turns against China in worst poll savaging since last year’s record

Name: Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in California reflect rise in many US states
Uploaded: 2021-03-03T12:00:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 41 s
Description: Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in California reflect rise in many US states

Gallup survey shows favourable views of the rival power at an all-time low of 20 per cent, with only Iran and North Korea more unpopular

The result is a steep decline on 2020 when China’s popularity fell below its previous lowest point in August 1989

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Asian-Americans at a protest last year in Boston against the rise in racism fuelled by anti-China rhetoric in the US in the early days of the new coronavirus pandemic. Photo: AP

Catherine Wong

Published: 8:00pm, 3 Mar 2021Updated: 8:09pm, 3 Mar 2021

Attitudes towards China have plunged to historic lows in the US, with Gallup’s latest poll finding just 20 per cent of Americans hold a favourable view of the country.

It is the lowest rating since the polling agency began collecting favourability data in 1979, and a further decline on last year’s record low of 33 per cent, measured in the early days of the new coronavirus when it was spreading in China but had yet to become a pandemic.

Positive views of China among Americans were at their highest – 72 per cent – in the months before the Tiananmen Square incident, before dropping to 34 per cent in August 1989 after the bloody crackdown.

More than 1,000 Americans from across the country took part in the latest survey which was recorded from February 3-18, after President Joe Biden said he was prepared to compete with China, while taking a different approach to his predecessor Donald Trump.

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Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in California reflect rise in many US states

The poll found China among the least popular countries in the eyes of Americans – with 79 per cent of respondents holding “very or mostly unfavourable” views. Only Iran and North Korea, at 85 per cent and 89 per cent, respectively, were regarded more unfavourably. Russia received a negative rating of 77 per cent.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, when asked about the survey at a regular press conference on Wednesday, blamed the results on “anti-China forces” and the Trump administration, which had “smeared China and instigated confrontation” between the two countries.

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