The survey evaluated responses from more than 27,000 college students across the US. Around three in 10 students (8,394 participants) said that China is the most powerful country in the world, while 48% of respondents claimed that the US is the most powerful. Six percent of participants said Russia was the most powerful, while 4% claimed the United Kingdom holds that title. Three percent of survey respondents viewed Germany as the most powerful country.
The latest survey comes amid heightened tensions between the US and China.
On July 23, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress that China poses “a more severe counterintelligence threat” to the US than any other nation in the world.
“I would say that there is no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat to this country right now than China,” Wray said. “That is saying a lot, and I don’t say it lightly,” he added, also claiming that Russia is “probably” the most threatening country to the US apart from China.
“China is fighting a generational fight here,” Wray averred. “And when I say China, I want to be clear, this is not about the Chinese people as a whole, or the Chinese Americans in this country. What it is about, though, is a variety of ways the Chinese Communist Party is using government officials, private sector entities … to steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”
China and the United States have been engaged in a trade war since US President Donald Trump announced in June 2018 that the US would subject $50 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% tariffs in a bid to modify the US-Chinese trade deficit.
The two countries have since exchanged several rounds of trade tariffs. On Thursday, the Trump administration announced that it would impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports worth $300 billion starting September 1, despite ongoing trade talks between the two countries.
