CHINA IS having a moment in Western public opinion. Communist Party mouthpieces crow that the country is increasingly “cool”. Young Westerners on social media are “Chinamaxxing”: adopting Chinese habits like drinking hot water (not cold), or Tsingtao beer. Polls suggest that views of China, especially among the young, are growing more favourable.
A report released on March 9th suggests the feeling is not mutual. Chinese opinion polls rarely ask about sensitive issues. But unusually, across three surveys in 2024-25, the Carter Centre, an American think-tank, was able to ask 6,500 Chinese people for their views on international affairs. The results suggest that China’s population sees the world in increasingly stark terms. Fewer Chinese now oppose using military force to unify China and Taiwan. President Donald Trump’s aggressive foreign policy appears to have dented views of America and stiffened Chinese resolve. The survey also shows that opinion diverges from state narratives in some key areas.
Two years ago more than half of Chinese opposed unifying China and Taiwan by military force. By late 2025, that figure had fallen to 38% (see chart one). Support for forced unification, under at least some circumstances, had risen from 25% in 2024 to almost half. Importantly, of all their neighbours, Chinese feel most warmly about Taiwan—in line with state narratives that the Taiwanese are “family”. A minority see Taiwan’s computer-chip business as an important reason for unification. A series of events last year, including a big arms deal struck by America and Taiwan and comments by the Japanese prime minister, probably contributed to the rising hawkishness, bolstering President Xi Jinping’s stance.
Mr Xi can also count on support for his tit-for-tat approach to relations with Mr Trump. Almost three-quarters of respondents regarded America as a national-security threat. Some 62% of people backed retaliation against America’s trade war, for instance by cutting off rare-earths exports, even if it is costly to China. Only 4% supported negotiating over export controls on chips. In 2024 views on America were more evenly split. In the past, the public saw amity with America as vital to China’s economic success. Now, however, they “are demanding a relationship of equals”, says Nick Zeller, one of the survey’s authors.
Public opinion in China is remarkably unified, thanks in part to the consistency of the state narratives that help shape it. But one characteristic appears to predict a respondent’s views better than others: income. High earners tend to view America, including its culture, more favourably than does the population at large, the poll suggests (see chart two). But the well-off are also more strident about Chinese power: they think more highly of Russia, and are more open to a military solution to Taiwan. The government has previously suppressed polling that showed that the rich had views out of step with the rest of the country.
Still, the population appears to be at odds with the dominant state narratives on some issues, notes Yawei Liu, another survey author. Despite support for trade with Russia, some 44% of Chinese oppose sending troops to support its war in Ukraine, a limit on the countries’ “no-limits partnership”. China calls its territorial claims in the South China Sea “indisputable”, but almost half the population would support giving up some claims in return for America reducing its security presence in Asia. And contrary to state-media love-ins, the population has a remarkably low opinion of Cambodia, a diplomatic pal, thanks to its rampant scam industry.
Popular support at home can be useful to the government when it wants to signal its resolve abroad. But opinion in China tends to be elastic and responsive to state narratives. That is partly because the state can be persuasive, and partly because survey respondents know what the government wants to hear. ■
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