Just 40 percent of US adults approve of how US President Joe Biden is handling relations with China, a new poll shows, with a majority anxious about Beijing’s influence as the White House finds its agenda increasingly shaped by global rivalries.
About 60 percent of respondents said they are gravely concerned about China, the survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed.
Biden has portrayed his domestic agenda on infrastructure and computer chip development as part of a broader competition with China, saying the future is at stake.
Photo: AFP
The Biden administration has preserved tariffs on imports from China and restricted the sale of advanced computer chips to the country, angering Chinese officials who want to fuel faster economic growth.
There are additional concerns over whether China would provide some form of military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, the poll showed that serious concern about the threat Russia poses to the US has fallen.
Concern about China outpaced that about Russia, the poll showed, after about even percentages of respondents named the two countries as a threat in a similar poll last year.
Biden has tried to frame relations with China as a competition with boundaries, rather than as a larger geopolitical clash.
“We seek competition, not conflict, with China,” Biden said last week. “ We’re not looking for a new cold war... We’ll responsibly manage that competition so that it doesn’t veer into conflict.”
Approval of Biden’s foreign policy is in line with views of his presidency more broadly, a possible sign that his agenda is not viewed through its individual components, but larger perceptions of the president himself.
The poll showed that 45 percent of respondents said they approve of Biden’s overall performance, while 54 percent disapproved.
Concern about China’s global influence as a threat to the US is similar to last year, but has in the past few years grown steadily from 54 percent just after Biden took office and 48 percent in January 2020.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS