Poll: Half of Americans expect war with China within 5 years

A poll conducted by the American Rasmussen Reports Center revealed that nearly half of the respondents believe that the United States is likely to go to war with China in the next five years.

The poll, posted on the center’s website on Thursday, sighted that 48% of respondents randomly considered China an enemy of the United States, while only 11% considered it an ally, and 36% of them believed that China was somewhere between an ally and an enemy.

Likewise, most of the Republicans polled, or about 66% of them, considered China an enemy, while 46% of the independents, and about a third of the Democrats considered it an enemy as well.

Most Republicans, at 58%, think war between the two countries is “at least somewhat likely.

And 59% of all respondents believed that US President Joe Biden’s handling of issues related to China was fair or weak, and 47% of them found his dealings weak.

And when asked about the probability of the United States going to war with China within the next five years, 48% of them expressed the possibility of that at least to some extent, as 30% said that the war was somewhat likely, while 18% confirmed that its very likely.

On the other hand, 27% said that it was very unlikely that the two countries would go to war, and 11% stressed that such a war was extremely unlikely.

In terms of age, 57% of voters under the age of 40 believe that it’s at least somewhat likely that the United States will go to war with China within the next five years, compared to 46% of those aged 40-64, and 38% of the 65-year-old voters.

Voters under the age of 40 tend to give Biden a poor rating for his handling of China-related issues.

The poll was conducted from February 5-7/2023, with 900 potential voters in the United States participating, in the wake of tensions surrounding the issue of the Chinese airship, which made its way across the United States before being finally shot down by the US military off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday.

Although China confirmed that it was a civilian weather balloon to study the weather, a senior US State Department official said, “Images of the balloon confirmed that it was intended for intelligence surveillance, and its equipment conflicts with the equipment on board weather balloons”.