As negative opinions on China grow in US, Russians are happy with their neighbor

As negative opinions about China grow among those of the United States, Russians hold overwhelmingly positive opinions about their neighbor, according to recent surveys.

A joint survey by think-tank Chicago Council and Moscow-based polling firm Levada Center released on Friday found that 74% of Russians have a favorable opinion of China, a finding that reflects the growing geopolitical heat between the two. nations. Barely 45% felt the same about the European Union, and only 39% had a favorable opinion of the United States

This data emerges amid a downward turn in China’s favorability in the United States. A Gallup poll released earlier this month found that only one in five respondents in the United States had a positive opinion of China. This was down from one in three last year and a record high since 1979, the year Washington established relations with the People’s Republic.

In the decades that followed, the country established itself as a leading economic power, tied only by the U.S. Its military and diplomatic forces have also grown and now challenge Washington’s post-war status. cold as the world’s only superpower, which it fell from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Today, while Washington sees Beijing as its main competitor, Moscow sees it as a strategic partner with which it has the most solid bilateral relations in the history of the two nations.

The Chicago Council-Levada Center poll found that Russians see the benefits of closer relations with China, which have resulted in unprecedented diplomatic, economic and military cooperation.

A majority of 55% of Russians say their country’s relations with China have the capacity to improve Russia’s position in the world, and 57% believed that these ties would deepen over the next decade. Looking back, 56% said China is more respected today than 10 years ago, 42% said the same for Russia and only 9% said the same for the United States.

And despite widespread perceptions of their unequal relationship, 56% of Russians said Moscow’s growing ties with Beijing would not increase Russia’s dependence on China.

“The reorientation of Russian President Putin away from the West and towards Beijing following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 appears to have been accepted, if not accepted, by the Russian public,” says the Chicago Council investigative report -Levada Center. “Ironically, although the Obama administration foresaw a pivot to Asia in 2009, it may have been the Russians, not the Americans, who made the pivot east.”

As for worsening US-China relations, the Gallup report viewed the COVID-19 pandemic as a contributing factor and warned that Asian Americans were facing collateral damage.

“In a year shattered by a pandemic first discovered in China, and perhaps the most widespread cyber attack in the United States attributed to Russia by the American intelligence community, China and Russia have reached new low points in the opinions of Americans, ”the report said. mentionned.

“The results also coincide with reports of an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans across the United States,” the report says, “something Biden hopes to blunt by condemning anti-Asian rhetoric. in a recent executive order and directing the federal government to avoid such language. in its operations. “

President Joe Biden has repeatedly condemned the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in the country. At the same time, he largely continued his predecessor’s hard line on China, and his administration said it was “deeply concerned” by the recent World Health Organization investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China.

In contrast, Moscow praised Beijing’s efforts to combat the coronavirus, especially the efforts the two countries have pursued in tandem.

“Our partnership is really excellent,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. “From February, March and April of last year, Russian scientists and doctors have been in contact with Chinese partners. The Chinese helped us with personal protective equipment, when there was a catastrophic shortage, the Chinese helped us with materials and medicine. “

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian delivered the compliments on Friday.

“China and Russia have stood side by side and worked closely to fight the coronavirus,” Zhao told reporters on Friday. “We have helped each other with anti-epidemic material, we have shared wholehearted practical experiences, and have jointly conducted research and development of vaccines and drugs, and worked hand in hand to resist all kinds of” viruses. policies ”.”

He praised the cooperation between the two countries.

“This reflects the high-level functioning of Sino-Russian relations in the new era and the deep friendship between the peoples of the two countries,” Zhao said.