According to a Ronald Reagan Institute poll on attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy, more than eight in 10 Americans are concerned about the military threat posed by China.
The survey found that 36% of respondents were “somewhat” concerned about China’s military buildup and 46% were “very” concerned, numbers unchanged from the institute’s last survey conducted in November 2023.
Despite these concerns, only 27% believe Washington has a coherent strategy in place to address the issue.
China’s military spending is the second largest in the world after the United States, accounting for nearly half of defense spending in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). China has rapidly expanded both its conventional and nuclear forces in recent years and now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and naval vessels than the United States.
Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
This military buildup, along with China’s more assertive moves in the East China Sea, South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, has prompted U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines to increase their defense budgets and strengthen their military ties with the United States and each other.
Three-quarters of survey respondents expressed concern about the possibility of China replacing the United States as the world’s leading superpower.
With China claiming Taiwan as its territory and clearly stating that it will not hesitate to unify the island by force if necessary, 58% of respondents expressed concern about the “isolation of Taiwan.”
Overall, 58% support strengthening the U.S. military presence near Taiwan, and 56% support expanding arms sales to Taiwan.
Survey participants also expressed concern about China’s malign activities in other areas.
- Technology theft (83 percent)
- Advances in artificial intelligence (82 percent)
- Unfair trade practices (80 percent)
- Human rights violations in China (83 percent)
- The suppression of freedoms in Hong Kong (68 percent)
Respondents expressed skepticism about whether Washington is prepared to manage U.S.-China relations, with just 27% believing the U.S. has a clear strategy, unchanged from the November survey.
China’s military budget increased by $296 billion last year and continues to grow at about 6-7 percent annually, according to SIPRI.
But some analysts believe Beijing has significantly under-reported these figures.
The American Enterprise Institute estimates that China’s defense spending will exceed $710 billion in 2022, more than double official figures and roughly equal to what the United States spent that year.
The survey, conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company from May 20-27, included a qualifying sample of 1,257 people weighted to reflect the demographics of the U.S. Of those, 794 were collected online and 463 were collected through live interviews, evenly split between landline and mobile phone calls.
The estimated margin of error is at least plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. When questions were asked of only half of respondents, the margin of error was +/- 3.9 points, according to the Reagan Institute.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
