Australians view China more favourably than US, poll shows
Australian views of the US have declined sharply since 2023
More Australians are souring on the US and turning to China amid endless wars and growing global instability.
A recent Pew Research poll, released last month, showed that for the first time, more Australians view China favourably than the US.
Looking closer, we can see the big shift started between Pew’s Spring 2023 and 2024 polls (northern hemisphere), when favourable views of the US fell from 52 per cent of Australians to 40 per cent. It was the year Israel began its genocide in Gaza with full support from the Biden administration, prompting mass protests in Australia.
The slide has continued with Donald Trump returning to the Oval Office in January 2025 and sparking numerous global crises – kidnapping the Venezuelan president, attacking Yemen, bombing Nigeria, declaring war on Iran (and causing a global fuel crisis) as well as the International Criminal Court, imposing tariffs and threatening allies such as Canada and Denmark.
Australians – like most countries surveyed by Pew – are also gradually changing their view of China. This was not the case during Trump’s first term, when low US favourability among Australians (30 per cent) was met with even less favourable views of China (12 per cent).
The Pew results are in line with another recent poll by the Lowy Institute – a hawkish think tank founded by pro-Israel billionaire Frank Lowy – showing Australians’ trust in the US at a record low.
Source of global instability
Many Australians are acutely aware of the global shifts underway, and the primary drivers of those shifts – despite a political and media class that would rather pretend otherwise.
The US is charging ahead with its multi-pronged assault on a global order that has privileged Australia for decades. That was made most obvious for millions of Australians when the US-Israeli war on Iran sent fuel prices skyrocketing and prompted three interest rate rises, deepening an already unbearable cost-of-living crisis.
Australians, like much of the world, are now paying the price for America’s policies – and many of them know it. China, on the other hand, appears like an anchor of desperately sought stability. Years of anti-China rhetoric from politicians and media alike is failing to stack up against a reality obvious to anyone who cares to look: the US, not China, is the current source of global instability.
Rising AUKUS pressure
Public sentiment on the US has been shifting all year. In May, one third said in an Australia Institute poll that AUKUS was not in the nation’s best interests and 59 per cent wanted a more independent foreign policy.
Momentum has also been building politically. Peter Garrett – the former Labor minister and Midnight Oil frontman – is crowd-funding a public inquiry backed by independents David Pocock and Andrew Wilkie. Labor MP Ed Husic has also called for a rethink, on top of longstanding opposition to the deal from the Greens, Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull.
Despite the pressure, the Albanese government remains stubbornly committed to a junior role in an alliance that is costing taxpayers at least $368bn, despite America’s erratic and dangerous behaviour.
The government is already making $4.2bn in down payments for submarines it is not guaranteed to receive, expanding a base in Fremantle – including new housing for 1,000 US troops – and granting US nuclear submarines “enduring access” to Australian soil.
The prime minister is effectively tying Australia to any future US war with China, at a time when most Australians want some distance from an unhinged Washington – and for good reason.