Lowy Institute Poll 2020 Report

Relations with superpowers — China and the United States

The public debate surrounding Australia’s ties to the world’s two largest economies — China and the United States — has only been sharpened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Australians appear to be leaning towards the United States. In 2020, more than half of the adult Australian population (55%) say Australia’s relationship with the United States is more important than the relationship with China. Only four in ten Australians (40%) today say China is the more important relationship. The gap between the two superpowers on this question is now 15 points, where three years ago they were inseparable: in 2017, 45% said the US relationship was more important, compared with 43% choosing the China relationship.

However, there is a divide between younger and older Australians on this issue. The majority of those aged 18‒29-years (54%) say the relationship with China is more important, while only 43% of that age group see the relationship with the United States as more important. By contrast, 57% of Australians aged over 30 see Australia’s relationship with the United States as more important, compared with 37% selecting China.

Australians see the COVID-19 crisis as having a great impact on the relative power of the United States and China, much like that inflicted by the global financial crisis more than a decade ago. In April’s COVIDpoll, a majority of Australians (53%) say the United States will be less powerful than it was before the crisis. This is 20 points higher than the response in 2009 after the financial crisis, when 33% of Australians said the United States would be less powerful than it had been. In 2020, more than a third of Australians (37%) say China will be more powerful after the crisis, but this is much lower than the 72% who said China would be more powerful after the financial crisis in 2009.

The United States and ANZUS

Australians have consistently expressed high levels of support for Australia’s alliance with the United States in the Lowy Institute Poll, even at times when US presidents were unpopular in Australia. In 2020, more than three quarters of Australians (78% — up six points this year) say that the alliance with the United States is either very or fairly important to Australia’s security.

Australian support for ANZUS remains high, though many would not support military action

Low levels of confidence in President Trump may have had some impact on Australian sentiment about the alliance in 2019, but support for ANZUS has now rebounded. The 2020 result is 15 points higher than in 2007 (63%), which remains the low point for Australian support for the alliance in 16 years of the Lowy Institute Poll.

Although Australians remain highly supportive of the security alliance with the United States, there is persistent reluctance to support military action under ANZUS. The majority of Australians (68%) say ‘despite the alliance, Australia should only support US military action if it is authorised by the United Nations’.

Only four in ten Australians (40%) agree with the statement that ‘Australia should act in accordance with our security alliance with the United States if it means supporting military action in the Middle East, for example, against Iran’. This is an eight-point decline from 2013. Even fewer Australians (34%) agree with Australian support for ‘military action in Asia, for example, in a conflict between China and Taiwan’. In 2013, a similar proportion (38%) said Australia should act in accordance with the alliance even if it meant supporting US military action in a conflict between China and Japan.

There is strong support for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Most Australians (88%) say they would support ‘Australia forming a partnership with the democracies of India, Japan and United States to promote peace and security in the region’.

President Trump’s policies

Reinforcing low levels of confidence in President Trump, Australians are sceptical of a number of his signature policies. President Trump’s attempt to engage with other authoritarian leaders meets with some approval, however. President Trump was the first US president to travel to North Korea and meet with its leader Kim Jong-un, and many Australians appear to support this ‘summit diplomacy’ with Kim: two thirds (66%) say they approve of his ‘negotiating with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un about the country’s nuclear weapons program’. A similar number (63%) approve of improved relations between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Most Australians disapprove of President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies

However, most Australians appear to disapprove of President Trump’s “America First” policies. Only a third of Australians (35%) approve of President Trump ‘increasing tariffs on imported goods from other countries’.

About a quarter of Australians (24%) approve of President Trump ‘criticising the defence spending of allies of the US’. Even fewer Australians (22%) approve of the US withdrawal from negotiations to form the Trans–Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement between 11 Asia–Pacific countries including Australia.

Only a small minority (19%) approve of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from international climate change agreements after the formal process to leave the Paris Agreement on climate change commenced in 2019.

China

Sixteen years of Lowy Institute Polls has uncovered the complex set of attitudes Australians hold about our largest trading partner. Australians’ views of China’s economy and people have tended to be positive, while Chinese investment and China’s human rights record have elicited negative views. This balance began to tip in 2019, when trust and warmth towards China reached record lows, and this year’s results confirm this downward trend.

Trust in China is at its lowest point in the history of the Poll, with 23% saying they trust China a great deal or somewhat ‘to act responsibly in the world’. Only 22% of Australians have some or a lot of confidence in China’s President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs (see page 8). And feelings towards China on a scale of 0° to 100° have fallen sharply in 2020, to 39°. This represents a drop of 10 degrees in a single year, and the lowest score that China has received in the history of the Poll.

Australians’ trust and warmth towards China have reached record lows

More Australians (55%) see China as ‘more of an economic partner’ than the 41% that see China as ‘more of a security threat’ to Australia. Far fewer Australians see China as an economic partner in 2020, in a 27-point fall from 82% to 55% since 2018. In 2018, Australians were asked to weigh up their perception of China as an economic partner versus a military threat, and the balance of opinion tipped far more heavily towards China being an economic partner (82%) rather than a military threat (12%).

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent political debate have only heightened the scrutiny of the relationship between Australia and China — and in particular, the economic interdependence between the two countries.

In 2020, almost all Australians (94%) agree that the government should work ‘to find other markets for Australia to reduce our economic dependence on China’. This is the single largest point of agreement in the history of the Lowy Institute Poll. In 2019, 74% of Australians said Australia was too economically dependent on China.

There is also considerable scepticism about other forms of cooperation between Australia and China. A majority of Australians (57%) say the government should restrict ‘joint scientific research between China and Australia in defence and security-related fields’.

94% of Australians say we should find other markets to reduce economic dependence on China

Four in ten (39%) say that Chinese companies should be allowed to supply technology for critical infrastructure in Australia. In 2019, 44% said that protecting Australians from foreign state intrusion should be the first priority for government when considering whether foreign companies should be allowed to supply technology for critical infrastructure.

Australians are also wary of military cooperation with China. A minority of Australians (39%) support ‘conducting joint military exercises with China and other countries’. Since 2015, Australian and Chinese military officers have both participated in Exercise Pandaroo.¹

Eight in ten Australians (82%) would approve of the Australian government ‘imposing travel and financial sanctions on Chinese officials associated with human rights abuses’, suggesting that there may be significant public support for the inquiry the Australian parliament commenced in late 2019 investigating the use of targeted sanctions to address human rights abuses.² This aligns with views previously expressed by Australians about the human rights situation in China: in 2019, only 27% of the country said Australia was doing enough to pressure China to improve human rights.

However, there are also areas where Australians support a cooperative relationship with China. More than half of Australians (59%) would support Australia ‘jointly funding aid projects with China in the Pacific and Asia’. In 2019, around three quarters of Australians (73%) said that Australia should try to prevent China from increasing its influence in the Pacific. More than half (55%) said that China opening a military base in a Pacific Islands country would pose a critical threat to the vital interests of Australia.

Eight in ten Australians support sanctions on Chinese officials associated with human rights abuses

As China’s growth has slowed, confidence about the trajectories of both the Australian and Chinese economies over the next five years has softened, and Australians are divided on whether the Chinese economy is growing or slowing. In 2020, around half (49%) say ‘China’s economy will slow down and the Australian economy will suffer’, an increase of five points from 2016.

A similar number (48%) say ‘China’s economy will continue to grow strongly and this will benefit Australia’. The view that China’s economy would continue to grow and benefit Australia was held by the majority of Australians (52%) in 2016.