Asian Americans view Asia favorably with the exception of China, says Pew Report

 

By Shalene Gupta

Asian Americans are the product of two different worlds: mainstream American society and their ancestral country. To understand their views on both of these worlds, Pew Research Center recently conducted a study of 7,000 Asian Americans who identified as having Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, or Taiwanese heritage.

In general, 78% of Asian Americans reported having favorable views of the United States, and 44% very favorable views. However, the picture gets more complicated for Asia. Here are the key findings:

    Asian Americans had favorable views of most Asian countries with the exception of China: 68% viewed Japan favorably, 62% Korea, and 56% Taiwan, while only 33% viewed India favorably and 20% viewed China favorably. However, 52% viewed China unfavorably and only 23% viewed India unfavorably. 

    Asian Americans felt favorably toward their countries of origin with the exception of Chinese Americans: 95% of Taiwanese Americans viewed Taiwan favorably, 92% of Japanese Americans said the same of Japan, and 76% of Indian Americans felt favorably toward India. However, only 41% of Chinese Americans viewed China favorably. Only 25% of Chinese Americans born in the U.S. felt favorably toward China, while 70% said they felt favorably toward Taiwan. Meanwhile, 75% say they would not move to their ancestral homeland.

    Asian immigrants viewed both the United States and their home countries more favorably than U.S.-born Asian Americans: 83% of Asian Americans viewed the U.S. favorably, compared to 64% of U.S.-born Asian Americans. Asian immigrants also had more positive views of China and India than U.S.-born Asian Americans.

    Education had a larger impact on people’s opinions than politics: 55% of Republican Asian Americans view China unfavorably as well as 52% of Democratic Asian Americans. However, Asian Americans with higher levels of education tended to feel more positively toward countries in Asia with the exception of China; people with lower levels of education tended to view China more favorably.

You can check out the full Pew report here.

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