Global Courant
As tensions rise between their countries, President Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping take to have repeatedly pushed back to Cold War comparisons.
But efforts to restore relations may run into a problem: public opinion. Opinion polls show striking similarities between the hostility, pessimism, and militarism in Americans’ view of the Soviet Union in the run-up to the Cold War in the late 1940s, and how they view China today. While parallels remain limited and contexts differ, this could complicate efforts to avert a Cold War-like clash.
The parallels
In both cases, American views of the Soviet Union and China quickly deteriorated from a fairly positive position.
The US and the Soviets were allies during World War II, and most Americans agreed with the way they worked together for much of 1945, according to polls archived at the Roper Center. But when the war ended and the Soviets swallowed up parts of Eastern Europe, those views changed. In 1946 three-quarters of Americans rejected of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
American views on China have similarly collapsed. Between about 2000 and 2016, comparable stocks rated the country positively and negatively. That changed in 2018, when former President Donald J. Trump’s anti-China language and trade war turned the opinions of many Americans sharply negative. The pandemic, China’s mass detentions of Muslims and partnership with Russia, Mr Biden’s speech about the US-China “competition” and the Chinese spy balloon incident have since fueled US perceptions of China. Unpleasant file lows.
In both cases, distrust grew as public opinion soured. When World War II ended in 1945, most Americans thought the Soviet Uniontrusted to work with us.” A year later, mostless friendlytowards the Soviets. Today, most Americans also call China unfriendly or An enemy.
“What’s really happening is alienation,” said Robert Daly, who directs the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “It’s that alienation that has more than a cold war flavor, it’s a hallmark of a cold war.”
In 1948, when the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, most Americans believed the US should keep troops there even if it risked war. Today, most prioritize preventing an invasion of Taiwan about maintaining good relations with China, sending weapons if China invades, and using the US Navy break a blockage. In 1949, nearly half of Americans thought it was “Just a matter of timebefore the US went to war with the Soviets. Today, two-thirds view China’s military power as onecritical threatto the US in the next decade.
Of course, the two cases are not identical. Most Americans are in favor of reducing trade relations with China, but the two countries are more intertwined economically than the US and the Soviets ever were. In the 1940s, most Americans supported Sending troops to defend European countries against Soviet takeover; most do not yet support sending troops to Taiwan. Americans are still more concerned about it terrorism And other foreign policy issues then about China. And for now, much more say the US and China “compete” – the preferred framing of the Biden administration – than say they are engaged in a cold war.
Yet the message Americans are getting from their leaders about China is very negative. “That’s getting through to the general public,” said Richard Herrmann, an Ohio State University professor who studies international relations and public opinion.
A feedback loop
Souring public opinion may, in turn, worsen US-China relations.
That may seem surprising; most Americans don’t pay much attention to foreign policy, which is typically far removed from their daily lives. But the international issues that do get recorded are mostly those of politicians, pundits and the news media talk about a lot. And once public opinion on a foreign policy issue calcifies, as is increasingly the case with China, political leaders often pay attention to it. “It generally provides guardrails for what policymakers can do,” says Dina Smeltz of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which polls Americans’ views on China.
Public hostility can drive leaders to speak and act aggressively, an aggressive attitude that journalists then communicate to the public. The result is a feedback loop in which events, words and actions of leaders, media coverage and public opinion reinforce each other.
That feedback loop can become very powerful when public sentiment crosses party linesas it did through much of the Cold War and increasingly does with China (even though self-proclaimed Republicans remain more hostile towards China than democrats and independents). “Taking a tough stance on China is one of the few issues on which Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem to agree,” Joshua Kertzer, a Harvard political scientist, said in an email.
In this way, the decisions of political leaders can both influence and influence public opinion. The early Cold War was an example of the dynamic. President Harry Truman’s 1947 declaration of American support for countries resisting “totalitarian regimes”, dubbed the Truman Doctrine, drew on and deepened anti-Soviet animus. John F Kennedy closely monitored polls on how other countries viewed the US-Soviet balance of military power, which led him to resume atmospheric nuclear testing and speed up the US space program. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, poured troops into Vietnam, in part because he feared political backlash if the Communists overran it.
Mr Biden recently predicted a “thaw” in US-China relations, but last week he called Mr Xi a dictator and then stood by, tormenting China. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing this month to lower the temperature, the Republicans shot at him. Mr Biden’s GOP challengers are already calling him soft on China ahead of the 2024 election. “The public climate is putting a ceiling on what the expected thaw could lead to,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell political scientist. .
Public opinion may already be getting in the way of Mr Biden’s strategy. While advising the State Department from 2021 to 2022, Ms Weiss advocated a “framework for peaceful coexistence” – deterring rather than provoking China. But, she said, senior government officials were skeptical that Americans would support anything less than “compete responsibly,” a catchphrase officials use to describe the current approach. “That’s an example of, I think, the indirect influence that the public climate — the discourse, not just the polls — has,” she said. (The White House has not commented on her assessment.)
Chinese public opinion – which has become equally negative And hawkish towards the US under Mr Xi — may also hinder de-escalation. Academic research suggests that public opinion can guide leadership decision-making even in countries where politicians are not democratically elected. “There is a public outcry for leaders to do something,” Mr Kertzer said. “And then you end up in a situation where escalation on one side leads to escalation on the other side.”
‘We are already there’
Does this mean that the US and China are destined to struggle for decades Cold War style? Not necessary. Still, frosty relationships can become self-fulfilling. A Cold War mindset in both countries could make escalation over Taiwan more likely. “Public opinion data right now suggests that if China invaded Taiwan, there would be strong reactions in the US,” Kertzer said. It could also harm U.S. allies and companies dependent on China’s economy, ending cooperation and diplomacy. And the anti-Chinese sentiment seems to have led to an increase in attacks against Asian Americans.
Others think a Cold War framework could help keep tensions from running high. “We are already involved in a global competition with China,” said Mr. Daly. “I am not advocating or predicting a cold war. I say descriptively that we are already there.” Admittedly, he added, “can inspire peacemakers as much as hawks.”
But if diplomatic friction and mutual suspicion persist, discussions of terminology may no longer matter. “The view at the macro level is that we’re really in some serious competition,” said Mr. Hermann. “Now the public has followed suit. And it’s not like you can turn this ship around overnight.”
