The American public wants to see tougher action on China over human rights, according to a new survey that found attitudes toward Beijing have hardened to historic levels.
And overall, 73% of adults said they had an unfavorable view of the country, up 26 percentage points since 2018 and up 7 points since March, as China became a focal point for anger over its handling of the coronavirus. That is the most negative rating in the 15 years since the Pew Research Center has been surveying views on China.
The Pew findings will cement the issue as one of the top election questions facing two candidates who have tussled over who can better play hardball with Beijing.
The Trump campaign took immediate heart that its focus on using China’s role as the origin of the coronavirus pandemic and the president’s frequent attacks are resonating with voters, even though Joe Biden’s team has responded with TV advertisements showing the president playing down COVID-19 and praising China’s Xi Jinping for being transparent about the disease.
Either way, both sides see it as a winning issue, said Bill Reinsch, a trade policy expert and China watcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“This poll is the latest in a series show a trend in the same direction. This one shows an acceleration. What that means is that it’s good politics to criticize China right now,” he said.
The results of the telephone poll of more than 1,000 people showed that about 1 in 4 people believe China to be an “enemy,” almost double the share of those who said this when the question was last asked in 2012.
The Trump administration last week banned 11 Chinese companies from buying American technology without a special license over their alleged complicity in human rights abuses against Uighurs — a Muslim minority. A week earlier, he sanctioned senior officials responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy.
The poll found that respondents want Washington to go further.
“As the U.S. imposes sanctions on Chinese companies and officials over Beijing’s treatment of Uighurs and other minority groups — after originally resisting these actions — the American public appears poised to support a tough stance,” read the report.
Around three-quarters of respondents said the U.S. should try to promote human rights in China, even if that damaged bilateral economic relations.
The findings will encourage Trump campaign insiders who say China is the “glue” that can bind together messaging on trade, immigration, and the economy with attacks on Biden.
The campaign’s deputy national press secretary, Ken Farnaso, welcomed the survey.
“President Trump is the first president with a backbone to stand up to China and hold them accountable for their nefarious actions while Joe Biden has spent his entire career appeasing Beijing and expanding American reliance on the communist nation,” he said. “President Xi Jinping’s human-rights violations only highlight the need for America to rethink our supply chain dependence on China and make no mistake, President Trump will always fight for Americans first.”
The survey was published on the same day that fresh concerns emerged about the future of Hong Kong. Twelve pro-democracy activists were barred from standing in September’s elections, the latest sign that Beijing is increasing its grip on the former British colony.
It comes one month after Communist Party rulers unveiled a national security law to control dissent, a move critics said undermined the “one country, two systems” approach that was supposed to protect basic freedoms when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
The administration’s stance was spelled out by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He said the international tide was turning. “We see the Chinese Communist Party for what it is: the central threat of our times,” he said.
Reinsch said there were many reasons why China should feature in the campaign but cautioned that Americans rarely put foreign policy at the top of their concerns when it came to voting.
“You see it in the opinion polls. People are not happy,” he said. “To what extent they are going to think about it in the voting booth — I’m going to vote for Trump because he’s tougher on China than Biden — I don’t know. I think it will be more a referendum on the economy generally.”
