More Americans see China as an ‘enemy’

Americans are increasingly viewing China as an “enemy” of the U.S., according to a new survey.

The survey, from the Pew Research Center, found 42 percent of Americans said they think China is an “enemy” to their country, up 4 points from last year at a similar time. In both years, only 6 percent of surveyed Americans said they think China is a “partner” of their country.

A large majority of Americans also said they have either a “very unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” opinion of China, at 81 percent in the survey, down from last year only slightly, when 83 percent of surveyed Americans said the same.

President Biden recently had a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was a follow-up to their meeting in California last year, with a senior administration official referring to the call as a “check-in.”

“Both President Biden and President Xi agreed to try to pick up the phone a bit more, use that tool as a means of responsibly managing the relationship, of being in closer touch at the leader level — which is so very critical in the Chinese system — on a more regular basis,” the official said.

The president also signed a $95 billion foreign aid package last week that included $8 billion in security assistance to push back against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. 

The Pew survey was conducted April 1-7, featuring 3,600 people and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.