More than 40 percent of Americans believe it is likely that the United States will have a direct military confrontation with China within the next five years, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on perceptions of U.S. relations with other countries, released on Thursday.
The two-day poll, which was conducted online earlier this week, also shows that a strong majority of Americans think Washington needs to do more to prepare for military threats from China.
However, Americans are more divided on questions of aiding Taiwan, with half of respondents wanting to provide Taiwan with the military resources to help deter an attack from China. A slight plurality opposes the deployment of U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from such an attack.
Overall, 75 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of China, including 32 percent who said that they had a “very unfavorable” view. The negative perceptions of China presented in this survey track with other recent polling trends which indicate that Americans’ views toward Beijing are at record lows.
The negative numbers may suggest that the constant framing of China as a rival, increased fear mongering among members of Congress, the media, and the Pentagon, and predictions on the likelihood of a great power war in the near-term — have affected public opinion regarding the threat that China poses.
In general, Republican respondents had more hawkish views toward China than their Democratic counterparts. Republicans predict that the U.S.-China relationship will continue to deteriorate in the next half-decade, with only 14 percent agreeing that the “relationship will become more friendly in the next 5 years,” and 58 percent saying that “direct military conflict between the U.S. and China” was likely over that same time period. Those numbers were 32 percent and 36 percent for Democrats, respectively.
Similarly, when asked to rank how much of a threat various countries posed to the United States on a scale of one to five, with 1 meaning “no threat” and 5 representing an “imminent threat” nearly half of Republican respondents called China an “imminent threat,” compared to 28 percent of Democrats. For both parties, a plurality of those surveyed chose “imminent threat.”
Republicans were also more likely than Democrats to support increasing military budgets to confront China. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans supported raising taxes as a way to spend more on the military, 51 percent were in favor on diverting spending on other programs as a way to further fund the military, and 72 said that they were more likely to support a presidential candidate in 2024 who believed that “the U.S. should increase military spending to defend against possible threats from China.” Democrats were less likely to agree with any of these suggestions.
These GOP responses mirror the hawkish rhetoric around Beijing on the campaign trail. “In recent months, Republican White House hopefuls have attacked China daily, with each candidate trying to show voters that they are best positioned to take on America's geopolitical foe,” Michael Martina and Jason Lange write in Reuters. “Former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley have all called for the United States to end permanent normal trade relations with China, which would limit economic ties between the countries.”
However, when it comes to one of the primary flashpoints in U.S.-China relations, Democrats were more willing to defend Taiwan than were Republicans. Fifty-six percent of Democrats supported providing Taiwan with military equipment, compared to just under half of Republicans. When it comes to committing American troops to defend the island, a slight plurality of Democrats were in favor (43 percent supported to 40 percent opposed), while a plurality of GOP respondents were opposed (35 percent in favor, 48 opposed).
Though a slight plurality of overall respondents opposed military intervention in Taiwan, there have been signs in recent years that the public is increasingly open to defending Taiwan militarily. Washington has long-stated a position of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, though that has become murkier with President Biden’s repeated claims that the U.S. would go to war if China attacked Taiwan. Other administration officials have maintained that policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged.
![Following a largely preordained election, Vladimir Putin was sworn in last week for another six-year term as president of Russia. Putin’s victory has, of course, been met with accusations of fraud and political interference, factors that help explain his 87.3% vote share. If this continuation of Putin’s 24-year-long hold on power makes one thing clear, it’s that he and his regime will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. But, as his war in Ukraine continues with no clear end in sight, what is less clear is how Washington plans to deal with this reality. Experts say Washington needs to start projecting a long-term strategy toward Russia and its war in Ukraine, wielding its political leverage to apply pressure on Putin and push for more diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. Only by looking beyond short-term solutions can Washington realistically move the needle in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. has focused on getting aid to Ukraine to help it win back all of its pre-2014 territory, a goal complicated by Kyiv’s systemic shortages of munitions and manpower. But that response neglects a more strategic approach to the war, according to Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke in a recent panel hosted by Carnegie. “There is a vortex of emergency planning that people have been, unfortunately, sucked into for the better part of two years since the intelligence first arrived in the fall of 2021,” Weiss said. “And so the urgent crowds out the strategic.” Historian Stephen Kotkin, for his part, says preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty is critical. However, the apparent focus on regaining territory, pushed by the U.S., is misguided. “Wars are never about regaining territory. It's about the capacity to fight and the will to fight. And if Russia has the capacity to fight and Ukraine takes back territory, Russia won't stop fighting,” Kotkin said in a podcast on the Wall Street Journal. And it appears Russia does have the capacity. The number of troops and weapons at Russia’s disposal far exceeds Ukraine’s, and Russian leaders spend twice as much on defense as their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine will need a continuous supply of aid from the West to continue to match up to Russia. And while aid to Ukraine is important, Kotkin says, so is a clear plan for determining the preferred outcome of the war. The U.S. may be better served by using the significant political leverage it has over Russia to shape a long-term outcome in its favor. George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, says that Russia’s primary concerns and interests do not end with Ukraine. Moscow is fundamentally concerned about the NATO alliance and the threat it may pose to Russian internal stability. Negotiations and dialogue about the bounds and limits of NATO and Russia’s powers, therefore, are critical to the broader conflict. This is a process that is not possible without the U.S. and Europe. “That means by definition, we have some leverage,” Beebe says. To this point, Kotkin says the strength of the U.S. and its allies lies in their political influence — where they are much more powerful than Russia — rather than on the battlefield. Leveraging this influence will be a necessary tool in reaching an agreement that is favorable to the West’s interests, “one that protects the United States, protects its allies in Europe, that preserves an independent Ukraine, but also respects Russia's core security interests there.” In Kotkin’s view, this would mean pushing for an armistice that ends the fighting on the ground and preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, meaning not legally acknowledging Russia’s possession of the territory they have taken during the war. Then, negotiations can proceed. Beebe adds that a treaty on how conventional forces can be used in Europe will be important, one that establishes limits on where and how militaries can be deployed. “[Russia] need[s] some understanding with the West about what we're all going to agree to rule out in terms of interference in the other's domestic affairs,” Beebe said. Critical to these objectives is dialogue with Putin, which Beebe says Washington has not done enough to facilitate. U.S. officials have stated publicly that they do not plan to meet with Putin. The U.S. rejected Putin’s most statements of his willingness to negotiate, which he expressed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in February, citing skepticism that Putin has any genuine intentions of ending the war. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said in response. But neither side has been open to serious communication. Biden and Putin haven’t met to engage in meaningful talks about the war since it began, their last meeting taking place before the war began in the summer of 2021 in Geneva. Weiss says the U.S. should make it clear that those lines of communication are open. “Any strategy that involves diplomatic outreach also has to be sort of undergirded by serious resolve and a sense that we're not we're not going anywhere,” Weiss said. An end to the war will be critical to long-term global stability. Russia will remain a significant player on the world stage, Beebe explains, considering it is the world’s largest nuclear power and a leading energy producer. It is therefore ultimately in the U.S. and Europe’s interests to reach a relationship “that combines competitive and cooperative elements, and where we find a way to manage our differences and make sure that they don't spiral into very dangerous military confrontation,” he says. As two major global superpowers, the U.S. and Russia need to find a way to share the world. Only genuine, long-term planning can ensure that Washington will be able to shape that future in its best interests.](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/following-a-largely-preordained-election-vladimir-putin-was-sworn-in-last-week-for-another-six-year-term-as-president-of-russia.jpg?id=34283894&width=600&height=600&quality=90&coordinates=483%2C0%2C483%2C0)