For months President Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies have placed responsibility for the Wuhan coronavirus squarely where it belongs: on the Chinese Communist Party.
Now, a new survey from Pew Research shows Americans are doing the same.
Americans’ views of China have continued to sour, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Today, 73% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of the country, up 26 percentage points since 2018. Since March alone, negative views of China have increased 7 points, and there is a widespread sense that China mishandled the initial outbreak and subsequent spread of COVID-19.
Around two-thirds of Americans (64%) say China has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. Around three-quarters (78%) place a great deal or fair amount of the blame for the global spread of the coronavirus on the Chinese government’s initial handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.
Around three-quarters (73%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of China today – the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Center has been measuring these views. This July survey also marks the third survey over the past two years in which unfavorable views of China have reached historic highs. Negative views have increased by 7 percentage points over the last four months alone and have shot up 26 points since 2018.
Views on China are shared across the political spectrum.
The percent who say they have a very unfavorable view of China is also at a record high of 42%, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23% said the same.
As has been the case for much of the last 15 years, Republicans continue to hold more unfavorable views of China than Democrats, 83% vs. 68%, respectively. Republicans are also much more likely to say they have a very unfavorable view of China (54%) than Democrats (35%).
President Trump has been critizied repeatedly by the White House Press Corps for calling the current global pandemic the "China virus." Turns out, he's just being accurate.