Last week, we discussed Americans’ attitudes toward Taiwan and China. The survey revealed that anti-Chinese and pro-Taiwan sentiments are bipartisan consensus. However, despite this agreement across partisans, a recent Pew survey reveals quite remarkable differences in how supporters of different parties choose to respond to China’s rise.

The survey included more than 2,500 American citizens. Confirming the findings of Gallup’s recent poll, 67% of respondents were unfavorable of China, a significant spike from 2018′s 46%. Generally, policies that oppose China received majority support among the public. For example, 80% of the public considered China not doing enough to cope with global warming, and the same percentage of citizens expressed a lack of confidence in Xi’s handling of international affairs. In addition, 90% of the public perceive China to be disrespectful of human rights, 60% of respondents considered it harmful to have economic interactions with China, 55% of citizens supported reducing the number of Chinese students in the states, and over half of respondents supported a more assertive stance in economic relations with China.

Interestingly, when Pew puts the respondents into their political camps, a gap emerges in what each party considers appropriate to respond to China. For instance, 80% of Republicans supported the use of economic means to contain China, while 60% of Democrats opposed it. In curbing China’s international influence, 60 percent of GOP supporters endorsed such a viewpoint, with the same percentage of Democrats opposed it. In limiting the number of Chinese students, 70% of Republicans stood behind the proposal; only 40% of Democrats thought likewise.

We illustrate three implications from these findings. First, the poll results show that although “more than half” of citizens were opposed to China, the support from Independents largely determined if the percentage would cross over 50%. The Independents’ stance is key as around a third to half of the voters claimed they were not affiliated with any party. Their stance would thus move the needle for American foreign policy toward China to have majority support. Going forward, polling agencies should design surveys to gauge opinions for this particular group.

Second, Congressional members do have an influence on policy toward China, but to a certain extent, they have to reflect or even cater to their supporters’ views on this issue. Thus, they are less likely to base their preferences on the general public’s stances but on the party’s median supporters. This is critical as we have seen this plays out in recent votes on key legislation. Under the conditions that both parties hold 50 seats in Senate, the vice president often gets to cast the winning vote. Thus, there are still uncertainties in predicting if China policy would match closely with the polls; factors such as issue polarization, agenda-setting by each party, preferences of voters of specific districts could all influence the outcome.

Third, among all the policies toward China, the one closest to a consensus is promoting human rights inside China. More than 70% of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Conservatives supported the US to promote human rights in China, even at the expense of economic relations with China. This finding is an important signal for the administration, as the public is willing to stand behind human rights even if it might incur costs. Democrats are generally less supportive of using economic means or limiting interactions to contain China, so their support for human rights is the reason why a consensus has surfaced.

The last implication is that China’s efforts to use economic means to influence American public opinion are futile. Instead, China might resort to a new strategy of pinkwashing, trying to promote human rights in certain areas but not others (such as opening freedom of speech to the ethnic Han population while limiting autonomy for minorities and citizens of Hong Kong), to shore up its image among the public. The American public might be tempted to believe that China has improved its human rights record and alters its perception toward China. This is likely to be China’s primary goal of image building overseas.

On a different note, the survey also asks the public opinion toward Hong Kong and Taiwan. About 70% of respondents consider that conflicts between China and Hong Kong and China and Taiwan are a serious issue, despite only half of the 70% considered it to be “very serious.” Comparatively, most Americans considered issues such as China’s military expansion, cyber-attacks at the US, China’s human rights violations, and forced technology transfer to China are “very serious issues.” This does not mean that the American public considers Hong Kong and Taiwan issues to be not important (if that is the case, most should have instead chosen “not serious at all). Some possible explanations are that issues in Sino-US relations would impact them more directly and that supporting Hong Kong and Taiwan might imply a conflict with China, which carries grave consequences.

For the public in Hong Kong and Taiwan, it would be helpful to make our current situations more visible to Americans. If Americans consider human rights as a worthwhile reason to stand up against China, then the oppression of China on Hong Kong, Taiwan, and minorities in China are certainly cases that should be brought up in front of the American public. Narratives and stories that clearly demonstrate China’s malignant behaviors will be useful for informing public opinion and could serve as the basis for future legislation.

(Austin Wang ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Twitter: @wearytolove

Yao-Yuan Yeh ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of International Studies and Chair of the Department of International Studies and Modern Languages at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. Twitter: @yeh2sctw

Fang-Yu Chen ([email protected]) is PhD in Political Science at Michigan State University. Twitter: @FangYu_80168

Charles K.S. Wu ([email protected]) is PhD candidate of Political Science at Purdue University. Twitter: @kuanshengtwn)

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