A survey of Asian Americans released Wednesday found that more than three-fourths had a favorable view of the United States, while only 20% had a favorable view of China.
The Pew Research Center surveyed more than 7,000 Asian American adults between July 2022 and January 2023, with questions focused on views of their homelands and others in Asia. The respondents included those with Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian and Chinese ties.
When asked about their own homeland, only 41% of Chinese Americans said they had a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of China. Every other group surveyed had a majority with a favorable opinion about their homeland.
Among other Asian Americans, only 14% said they had a favorable view of China.
The Pew survey found that the longer a Chinese American had been in the United States, the less favorable their view of China. For those living in the United States for 10 years or less, 56% had a positive view compared to 38% for those in the United States for 21 or more years.
When asked if they would ever move to their ancestral homeland, Chinese Americans were the least likely to say yes with 16% signaling they would, compared to 28% for all other Asian Americans.
Economic power
A slight majority of those surveyed (53%) selected the United States as the country they thought would be the world’s top economic power in 10 years.
Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean respondents were the most bullish on U.S. prospects, with a gap of more than 30 percentage points between those who selected the United States and those who picked China.
The gap was tighter among Filipino, Chinese and Indian respondents, with the United States only ahead of China by about 13%.
Other findings
Each group viewed its homeland more favorably than any other country. Taiwanese Americans (95%), Japanese Americans (92%) and Korean Americans (86%) had the highest scores.
Filipino Americans were more than four times as likely to say they would consider moving to the Philippines if they were born there than if they were born in the United States. For those who expressed a willingness to move, the top selection for a reason (47%) was a lower cost of living.
The Pew survey found that Indian Americans were the most open to moving to their homeland with 33% saying they would consider doing so.
Among those who said they would, 52% said their reason for moving would be to live closer to family members.
Indian Americans also had the highest percentage of respondents (80%) saying they had a favorable view of the United States.
On the other end of the spectrum, 60% of Indian Americans viewed China negatively, compared to 10% who viewed it positively and 27% who selected neither. Among Indian Americans, no other country had more than 10% unfavorable scores.
While most other Asian Americans (68%) said they had a favorable opinion of Japan, just 36% of Korean American respondents said so. The Pew data showed U.S.-born Koreans (50%) had a more positive view of Japan than those born abroad (31%).
Overall, Vietnamese Americans were second only to China for the least number of respondents saying they had a favorable view of their homeland at 59%. Pew said there was more support among Vietnamese women, with two-thirds saying their view was favorable compared to about half of men.
