In Global Public Opinion, the US is Losing to China

Many.posts have dealt with international views of the United States.  They have taken a negative turn.

Jonathan Schulman, Laura Silver, Laura Clancy, and William Miner at Pew:

Global views of the United States worsened last year as President Donald Trump’s second term began, though most people still had a more positive opinion of the U.S. than China. This year, that is no longer the case.

Views of China have improved in recent years while opinions of the U.S. have worsened, to the point where China is now seen more positively than the U.S. in most of 36 countries surveyed.

Confidence in these countries’ respective leaders to do the right thing regarding world affairs has followed a similar pattern. In the latter half of Joe Biden’s presidency, confidence in him was higher than confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping across most countries surveyed, though Biden’s rating declined in many places from 2023 to 2024.

During the first two years of Trump’s second term, ratings of the U.S. president worsened significantly. While many people still lack confidence in Xi, positive views of him have become more widespread, and more overall now say they have confidence in Xi than in Trump.

One area where the U.S. still gets higher ratings than China has to do with personal freedoms: More say the U.S. government respects the personal freedoms of its people than say the same of the Chinese government. Still, the gap has been narrowing – driven by large drops in the shares saying the U.S.  government respects personal freedoms.

Foreign Influence and a Mayor

Many posts have analyzed how foreign governments try to influence American politics and policy. Russia and China are prominent influencers.

Brittny Mejia and Rebecca Ellis at LAT:

Eileen Wang, an Arcadia city leader facing charges of acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, resigned Monday after reaching an agreement to resolve the federal case.

Wang, who served as mayor of the San Gabriel Valley suburb, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over charges that she acted under the control of the People’s Republic of China to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to court filings.

Wang, who was previously elected to the City Council in November 2022, stepped down as mayor on Monday hours after the plea agreement was unsealed. Arcadia officials and Wang’s attorneys said the conduct described by federal authorities occurred before Wang was elected.

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From late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, her former fiance, to run a website called U.S. News Center that branded itself as a news source for Chinese Americans, according to the plea agreement unsealed Monday. Both Wang and Sun “executed directives” from Chinese government officials, posting requested articles and reporting back with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, the agreement says.

On June 10, 2021, the agreement says, Wang received a message from a government official about “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue,” which included a link to a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times from the consul general of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles. The consul general had been responding to a Times editorial supporting a boycott of products made with cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China.

At the time, news reports were highlighting the Chinese government‘s campaign of incarceration, persecution and “reeducation” of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.

“There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” read the message from the Chinese government official, according to the plea agreement.

Minutes after receiving the link, Wang posted the article on her website and responded to the Chinese government official with a link to the article on her website, according to the court filing.

“So fast, thank you everyone,” the government official responded, the court records show.

Prosecutors also say Wang edited articles at the request of officials and shared information showing the reach of the posts.

“Thank you leader,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2021, after being complimented for a post that was viewed more than 15,000 times, according to the plea agreement.

Regulating the Internet

 Bruce Mehlman:

National governments are also considering AI oversight and regulation, but the past three decades of internet policy have shown profoundly different goals & approaches. The U.S. has prioritized innovation, the EU consumer protection, China governmental control. As a result, America has enjoyed the most tech entrepreneurship by a wide margin, but we lack many rules to protect children, contain misinformation or fight fraud

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The World Does Not Like US Leadership

 Many posts have discussed international public opinion about the United States.

Julie Ray, Benedict Vigers and Zaccary Ritter at Gallup:

While neither country commands broad support, China surpassed the United States in global approval ratings in 2025, with a median of 36% approving of China’s leadership, compared with 31% for the U.S. China’s five-percentage-point advantage over the U.S. is the widest Gallup has recorded in China’s favor in nearly 20 years.

The recent shift reflects a decline in U.S. ratings alongside an increase for China. Median approval of U.S. leadership fell from 39% in 2024 to 31% in 2025, returning to earlier lows, while China’s approval rose from 32% to 36%.

At the same time, disapproval of U.S. leadership rose to a record-high 48%, while China’s disapproval rating remained flat at 37%.

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Approval of U.S. leadership declined by 10 points or more in 44 countries between 2024 and 2025, while it increased by a similar amount in only seven. The declines were concentrated among U.S. allies, including many NATO partners.

Germany led the world in declines; its approval of U.S. leadership fell by 39 points, followed closely by Portugal (down 38 points). Several other long-standing U.S. partners — including Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy — also showed substantial decreases.

U.S. standing improved by more than 10 points among Israelis, marking an exception among U.S. allies. Approval of U.S. leadership in Israel, which surged after the October 2023 Hamas attack and then fell sharply in 2024, rebounded to 76% in 2025 after Trump’s return to the White House — a 13-point increase, among the highest levels globally.

America Is Vulnerable

Many posts have analyzed how foreign influence and intelligence operations.

R.M. Schneiderman and Derek Owen at The Bulwark:

American security experts fear that growing networks of foreign spies, combined with new technology, represent an unprecedented threat—one the FBI, the primary agency tasked with thwarting hostile foreign intelligence services, may struggle to address.

“Look at what the Ukrainians are doing with drones and AI against Russia,” says national-security analyst Paul Joyal. “I know our adversaries are watching.”

Yet as these dangers have mounted, the White House has proposed slashing the FBI’s budget by more than $500 million and has shifted the bureau’s priorities away from combating spies and other forms of foreign influence. Under Director Kash Patel, the FBI has moved people and power out of the bureau’s headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington and into the heartland. He reassigned nearly a quarter of all agents to a job that’s never been part of the FBI’s purview, immigration enforcement, according to data obtained from the bureau by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat. Counterintelligence specialists with deep expertise in countries like China, Russia, and Iran are now regularly working immigration cases on a rotating basis, according to former agents who recently left the bureau. The FBI has also limited investigations of crimes like violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), allowing foreign spies greater room to maneuver.

The end result of these changes, former senior FBI officials maintain, is that America is extremely vulnerable—not just to an attack, but to an unprecedented level of foreign espionage.

“It’s a disaster,” says Robert Anderson, the head of FBI counterintelligence from 2012 to 2014. “I’m rooting for everybody because we’re all Americans, [but] Patel needs to wake up.”

AI and Chinese Propaganda

 Artificial intelligence is all the rage.  The hot new Chinese AI project spews propaganda when you asked it about Chinese issues.

I asked DeepSeek two questions: "how does China treat the Uyghur Muslims" and "is Taiwan part of China"

Here are DeepSeek's answers: pic.twitter.com/nr1D19u32M

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) January 28, 2025

Axis of Disinformation

 Justin Green at Axios:

An axis of disinformation — ranging from hackers to fake websites to a dose of AI — has emerged ahead of November, with the U.S. government stepping up its warnings on foreign election interference.

Why it matters: Three of America's most potent adversaries — Russia, China and Iran — make the list.

1) Russia paid nearly $10 million to hire U.S. influencers — some with millions of followers — to "amplify divisions in the United States," the Justice Department said in an indictment today.The Justice Department seized 32 domains, some including "cybersquatted" sites publishing disinformation meant to resemble legitimate news outlets, like the Washington Post and Fox News, reports Axios' Avery Lotz.

2) China is leveraging a campaign called "Spamouflage" — using fake or hacked accounts posing as American citizens — to spread anti-Western sentiment ahead of the election, according to a report out yesterday by intelligence company Graphika.Some of the most recent political content was "almost certainly AI-generated," per the report.
China is more focused on influencing U.S. policy on Taiwan and undermining confidence in U.S. democracy than on helping any particular candidates, analysts told AP.

3) Iran has emerged as a player in its own right in the disinformation universe.

• It has already hacked individuals associated with the Trump campaign and attempted similar attacks on the Biden and Harris campaigns.
• Iran's government and Revolutionary Guards Corps are pushing the disinformation effort, the N.Y. Times reported today.
• Iranian operatives also posed as students and gave financial help during the U.S. protests this year against the Israel-Gaza war, the Times reports, citing U.S. intelligence assessments.

Foreign Influence on US Politics

Many posts have analyzed how foreign governments try to influence American politics and policy.

 Catherine Kim at Politico:

So what’s behind this surge of foreign cash allegedly influencing U.S. politics? Are public officials simply getting more brazen in their interactions with foreign governments? According to Casey Michel, author of the upcoming book Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World, illegal foreign influence has been entrenched in our political system for decades — but it’s happening now more than ever.

Foreign lobbying of all sorts is a big business in the U.S., with countries and other entities spending over $5 trillion since 2016 to influence U.S. policy and burnish their own images. And despite bipartisan interest, attempts at reform have largely stalled out thus far.

Now, though, a confluence of factors including the Justice Department getting more aggressive on the issue, have led to this recent series of high-profile indictments. To better understand how foreign actors influence our politics and what their own goals are, Nightly spoke with Michel. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Are we seeing an uptick in foreign interference in our politics through lobbying? And if so, why is that the case?

We have seen an absolute explosion in recent years in terms of the scope and the scale of both foreign lobbying as well as foreign interference — without any kind of precedent in American history itself. And that’s for a few reasons: You had folks in Washington asleep at the wheel as it pertained to both the regulations and even the potential threat to these kinds of unchecked foreign lobbying. On the ground, there was a proliferation of Americans willing to provide foreign lobbying services beyond just traditional lobbying to authoritarian regimes, who were realizing just how wide open Washington was. It was really in the mid-2010s when things began to shift. And finally, folks started paying attention and realizing what the cost of ignoring these networks for so many years truly was.

From the FBI:

The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party are a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.

Confronting this threat is the FBI’s top counterintelligence priority.

To be clear, the adversary is not the Chinese people or people of Chinese descent or heritage. The threat comes from the programs and policies pursued by an authoritarian government.

The Chinese government is employing tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable to China.

At the same time, the Chinese government is seeking to become the world’s greatest superpower through predatory lending and business practices, systematic theft of intellectual property, and brazen cyber intrusions.

China’s efforts target businesses, academic institutions, researchers, lawmakers, and the general public and will require a whole-of-society response. The government and the private sector must commit to working together to better understand and counter the threat.

American Strengths

Many posts have discussed energy, technology, and immigration.

Joel Kotkin:

Overall, natural resources account for more than half of all Canada’s exports and roughly one-quarter of those of the US. Together the US and Canada produce roughly twice as much oil as either Russia or Saudi Arabia. Fossil fuels, the demon rum of the green catastrophists, are not going away, even in Europe. They still account for a vast majority of all global power generation, and the demand for fossil fuels will remain high for the foreseeable future.

Europe, meanwhile, seems to be tilting towards ‘energy suicide’, thanks to the green-fuelled rush to shut down nuclear reactors, natural-gas plants and coal power plants. This has driven energy prices to unprecedented highs. In contrast, the US has been greatly empowered by the growing demand for fossil fuels. It became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) last year. Indeed, its LNG exports are expected to almost double by 2030 on already approved projects. And around two-thirds of those exports go to Europe.

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Today, of the top 10 tech firms by market capitalisation, eight were located in the US, one in Taiwan and one in the Netherlands. Over time, the only substantive threat to North American tech dominance comes from China, where firms are shielded from competition with the likes of Google, Amazon and Meta. These protected firms could pose a challenge in artificial intelligence. But America’s firms, venture capitalists and universities maintain an enormous lead in developing cutting edge AI.

Over time, China’s authoritarian structures will likely stunt its technological rise. The Chinese Communist Party’s assault on property rights and the rule of law is making foreign companies reconsider their tech investments. Japanese firms, including Sony and Nintendo, have already moved operations out of China, as part of an exodus of over 1,700 companies in the past year alone. SoftBank, the giant Japan-based venture-capital firm, has seen its revenues crater as its Chinese investments fell due to government clampdowns. It has now suspended future investments in China.

Arguably the real ‘secret sauce’ of North American power lies in immigration. Of course, the recent surge in illegal migration at the southern border has brought many towns and cities to breaking point. But legal migration, on the other hand, has been a huge success story, enabling the US to attract some of the world’s brightest minds and best talent.

The US and Canada together have more foreign-born people than the next five countries combined. Migration has allowed the population to grow, if not rapidly, far more than any major European country. In fact, several European nations, like Italy, Germany, Poland, Russia and the Baltic states, are actually shrinking. China, Korea and Japan are all experiencing similar declines.

Chinese Propagandist

Many posts have discussed the political influence of China.

Mara Hvistendahl et al. at NYT:

On the surface, No Cold War is a loose collective run mostly by American and British activists who say the West’s rhetoric against China has distracted from issues like climate change and racial injustice.

In fact, a New York Times investigation found, it is part of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda. At the center is a charismatic American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, who is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.

What is less known, and is hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies, is that Mr. Singham works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.

From a think tank in Massachusetts to an event space in Manhattan, from a political party in South Africa to news organizations in India and Brazil, The Times tracked hundreds of millions of dollars to groups linked to Mr. Singham that mix progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points.

Some, like No Cold War, popped up in recent years. Others, like the American antiwar group Code Pink, have morphed over time. Code Pink once criticized China’s rights record but now defends its internment of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, which human rights experts have labeled a crime against humanity.

TikTok, Montana, and the Dormant Commerce Clause

 Montana has banned TikTok, which is suing.

119. The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States. U.S. Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 3. While the Commerce Clause is framed by its text [as] an affirmative grant ofpower to Congress , the so-called Dormant component of the Clause has long been recognized as a self-executing limitation ofthe States to enact laws imposing substantial burdens on [interstate] commerce ." South-Central Timber Dev.,Inc. v.Wunnicke ,467 U.S.82 ,87 (1984).

 120. The TikTok Ban imposes substantial burdens on interstate commerce inviolation of the Commerce Clause and other structural provisions ofthe Constitution by prohibiting Plaintiff from operating TikTok in Montana and penalizing Plaintiff any time a user in Montana accesses TikTok or is offered the ability to access or download TikTok in the State . The TikTok Ban is not limited to Montana residents ; it applies to anyone in the State ,including those visiting or merely passing through for work.

121. Substantial burdens on interstate commerce generally result from inconsistent regulation ofactivities that are inherently national or require a uniform system of regulation. Bernstein v.Virgin Am.,Inc.,3 F.4th 1127, 1135 (9th Cir. 2021) (quoting Nat'lAss'n of Optometrists & Opticians v. Harris,682 F.3d 1144, 1148 (9th Cir.2012)).

122. Plaintiff's operation of TikTok ,an application used by over 150million users in the United States ,including in every State, is inherently national in scope and requires a uniform system of regulation, not one subject to the policy decisions offifty separate States.

 

 

Chinese Billionaire Gets Writers to Front Ghosted Op-Eds

Walker Bragman at OptOut:

Operatives representing rightwing Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who was charged in March for orchestrating a vast financial fraud scheme, have been secretly recruiting prominent conservatives—including the head of the New York Young Republicans Club—to write opinion pieces on his behalf in order to bolster his image as a dissident, according to an investigation by Important Context and the OptOut Media Foundation. Many of the pieces were published in high-traffic rightwing outlets.

Once a powerful businessman, Guo has been a prominent critic of the Chinese Communist Party since fleeing his home country in 2014 after being accused of bribery, rape, kidnapping, and other charges. Guo’s vocal advocacy has earned him a devoted following among the Chinese diaspora and made him a favorite of the American right as it postures against the rising eastern power. Guo is perhaps best known as the longtime business partner of Steve Bannon, a rightwing extremist and former top aide to Donald Trump, with whom Guo has launched multiple ventures purportedly aimed at overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party.

Guo’s collaboration with established rightwing figures in the U.S. was aimed at manipulating the media to bolster his credibility. A source with knowledge of the Guo network’s operations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their livelihood, outlined to Important Context/OptOut how representatives working on behalf of Guo would recruit the writers to place their names on opinion pieces that spoke glowingly of him and his efforts while criticizing his adversaries.

The writers would take prompts as well as pre-prepared drafts, which they could then edit. The pieces were distributed to various media outlets, including far-right Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, Townhall, The Washington Times, and Headline USA, under the conservative writers’ bylines.

Important Context/OptOut obtained and reviewed documentation showing that writers involved in the arrangement included New York Young Republicans Club President Gavin Wax, Bannon’s War Room co-host Natalie Winters, podcaster Kelly Walker, and former Trump aide and congressional candidate Karoline Leavitt. (None of the four writers, nor any of the outlets—Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, Townhall, The Washington Times, and Headline USA—responded to our requests for comment.)

Chinese Influence Ops

Many posts have discussed the political influence of China.

 Danielle Pletka at Foreign Policy:

Everyone recalls, of course, the infamous Chinese spy balloon that collected critical military intelligence as it drifted across the United States, to the consternation of the Biden administration. Chinese cyberattacks have also been responsible for some of the most intrusive breaches of U.S. government websites, including a hack into the personnel files of millions of government employees in the Office of Personnel Management.

Yet even these well-publicized incidents are only the tip of the iceberg. Many of China’s spying and influence operations are much more pervasive, stealthy, and insidious than commonly understood. While there is a growing recognition that apps such as TikTok are potential Chinese government tools of influence and espionage—with the ability to track keystrokes, use your phone as a surveillance device, and collect biometric data including faceprints and voiceprints—there’s less awareness of the other tools at the regime’s disposal. Beijing is also establishing cultural associations, dominating Chinese language instruction programs, buying private secondary education institutions, purchasing land near military installations, taking over Chinese community organizations, and eating up local Chinese-language media.

One Bipartisan Committee

Dana Milbank at WP:

Ask Mike Gallagher. The Wisconsin Republican has been put in charge of the new House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party — and the chairman so far is turning his panel into everything the covid committee isn’t: bipartisan, serious and productive.

“This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century, and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake,” he said in opening the panel’s prime-time hearing Tuesday — the same day the covid committee held its frivolous forum. “Time is not on our side. Just because this Congress is divided, we cannot afford to waste the next two years lingering in legislative limbo or pandering to the press.”

He took no partisan shots, and he screened “a joint video that the ranking member and I put together to help set the stage for the hearing.” That ranking Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), reciprocated by acknowledging that “both Democrats and Republicans underestimated the CCP” and praising the bipartisanship and “our unity as Americans.”

The witnesses (including two former Trump advisers) and other lawmakers maintained the feel-good sentiment, what Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) described as “Republicans and Democrats working together to expose the malign activities of the CCP.”

The only dissent in the room came from a pair of hecklers from the far-left group Code Pink, waving signs that said “China is not our enemy” and “Stop Asian Hate.”

Gallagher waited patiently for them to be removed. “Your sign is upside down,” he told the “Stop Asian Hate” guy, who then righted his poster.

A couple of the Democrats obliquely referenced the racist remarks of Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), who (on Fox News, naturally) challenged the loyalty to the United States of Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who is Chinese American. But Gallagher had already called that “out of bounds” during a joint interview with Krishnamoorthi on CBS’s “Face the Nation” — one of multiple joint appearances and statements by the pair.

Gallagher is exactly the sort of person you’d want in the role as China’s growing aggression pushes us toward a new cold war. A 39-year-old Princeton graduate and former Marine captain with a PhD in international relations, he noted with satisfaction this week that his panel has “no bomb throwers.”

Gallagher, by Krishnamoorthi’s account, worked closely with Democrats to draft a rules package that will guide the panel over the next two years — “a bipartisan agreement that has my full support.” It passed Tuesday without debate, amendment, or a single dissenting vote.

That’s what happens when a leader puts country before party.

Language Use in the US

 Sandy Dietrich and Erik Hernandez at the US Census Bureau:

The number of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home nearly tripled from 23.1 million (about 1 in 10) in 1980 to 67.8 million (almost 1 in 5) in 2019, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report.

At the same time, the number of people who spoke only English also increased, growing by approximately one-fourth from 187.2 million in 1980 to 241 million in 2019 (Figure 1).

The report, Language Use in the United States: 2019, uses American Community Survey (ACS) data to highlight trends and characteristics of the different languages spoken in the United States over the past four decades.

The Hispanic population is the largest minority group in the United States. So it is not surprising Spanish was the most common non-English language spoken in U.S. homes (62%) in 2019 – 12 times greater than the next four most common languages.

Origins of COVID

Michael Worobey and colleagues have an article in Science titled: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." The abstract:

Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assassination

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.

You would be doing your country - and the world - a great service.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022

 Many Americans want to assassinate Putin.  At Politico, Steven Kinzer writes:

We’ve tried it repeatedly. Often we have failed, but even when we seem to have succeeded, the long-term consequences have been terrible. An order from the Oval Office to assassinate a foreign leader would not break a taboo. It would only be the latest in a series of self-defeating blunders.

So far as is known, Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to order such assassinations. He began by targeting Premier Zhou Enlai of China. During the 1950s, Eisenhower and nearly every other policymaker in Washington considered the “Red Chinese” to be maniacal fanatics bent on world conquest. When Zhou announced in 1955 that he would travel to Bandung, Indonesia, for a momentous conference of Asian and African leaders, the CIA saw a chance to kill him. Zhou chartered an Air India jet for his flight to Bandung. It exploded in midair, killing 16 passengers. But Zhou had not boarded. China called it “murder by the special service organizations of the United States.”

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Americans are impatient by nature. We want quick solutions, even to complex problems. That makes killing a foreign leader seem like a good way to end a war. Every time we have tried it, though, we’ve failed — whether or not the target falls. Morality and legality aside, it doesn’t work. Castro thrived on his ability to survive American plots. In the Congo, almost everything that has happened since Lumumba’s murder has been awful.

International Drop in Trust

Diana Marszalek at Reuters:

The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer finds faith in government and media continues to drop, perpetuating a cycle of distrust that “threatens societal stability.”

The survey of 36,000 consumers in 28 countries found 48% of respondents view government and 46% view media as divisive forces today, versus business and NGOs which fared better with 31% and 29% respectively.

On top of that, government leaders (42%) and journalists (46%) are the least trusted societal leaders, whereas people have the most confidence in coworkers (74%) and scientists (75%). Most respondents also believe that the government (66%, up nine points) and journalists (67%, up 8 points) are lying to them.

The numbers show a precipitous fall from grace for government, which was the most trusted institution in May 2020 but has dropped 13 points (from 65% to 52%) to third behind business (61%) and NGOs (59%). Only the media (50%) fared worse.

“Government is seen as less competent than business, and we are in a whole new game,” said Edelman CEO Richard Edelman. “We have very big problems and government isn’t seen as able to manage them.”

The collapse in government trust was particularly acute in developed democracies (not one reached a 60-point score), largely pinned to respondents in every one of those countries believing they will be worse off financially in five years — and 85% fear they will lose their jobs to factors including automation. The US ranks 43 in the trust index (a 10-point drop since 2017), 40 points lower than China, at 83.

Russian Influence Spending

Many posts have analyzed how foreign governments try to influence American politics and policy. Russia and China are prominent influencers.

Anna Massoglia at Open Secrets:

Russian media outlets reported spending more than $146 million on foreign influence operations and propaganda in the U.S. since 2016, with over $16 million on propaganda targeting the U.S. in 2021, OpenSecrets’ analysis of new Foreign Agents Registration Act records shows.

And that’s just the spending that Russian foreign agents have disclosed to the Justice Department under FARA.

The U.S. government has identified multiple online media sites that are directed by Russian intelligence services and not disclosed through FARA, spreading disinformation to undermine COVID-19 vaccines produced outside Russia. Social media platforms have also become a breeding ground for even more Russian propaganda campaigns that are often not disclosed in FARA filings.

Faced with rising concerns about Russian interference in U.S. elections and foreign influence more generally, the Justice Department has compelled multiple broadcasters and other middlemen helping Russian propaganda efforts targeting the U.S. to register as foreign agents.

During the 2020 presidential election, the Kremlin poured money into TV and media outlets aimed at influencing voters while tensions rose between the two countries. During the 2016 presidential election, the Russian government interfered to boost former President Donald Trump. Russia’s top media spenders include RIA Novosti and Rossiya Segodnya, government entities that administer global broadcasts of Russian state-funded networks RT and Sputnik.

In August 2020, Rossiya Segodnya contracted with Ghebi LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based production company incorporated by the editor-in-chief of a U.S. production company working for the Russian media entity called RIA Global. Since then, the LLC has reported more than $2.7 million in payments from the Russian government’s media entity that administers Sputnik.

The Russian government’s propaganda spending is rivaled most intensely by China, which spent more than any other country in 2020.

Chinese foreign agents reported about $67.2 million in total 2020 lobbying and influence spending. More than 80% of China’s foreign influence spending in the U.S. came from Chinese state-owned media outlet CGTN TV and the CCP’s English-language newspaper, China Daily.

Nuclear War and the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis

Charlie Savage at NYT:

When Communist Chinese forces began shelling islands controlled by Taiwan in 1958, the United States rushed to back up its ally with military force — including drawing up plans to carry out nuclear strikes on mainland China, according to an apparently still-classified document that sheds new light on how dangerous that crisis was.

American military leaders pushed for a first-use nuclear strike on China, accepting the risk that the Soviet Union would retaliate in kind on behalf of its ally and millions of people would die, dozens of pages from a classified 1966 study of the confrontation show. The government censored those pages when it declassified the study for public release.

The document was disclosed by Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked a classified history of the Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers, 50 years ago. Mr. Ellsberg said he had copied the top secret study about the Taiwan Strait crisis at the same time but did not disclose it then. He is now highlighting it amid new tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan.

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Mr. Ellsberg quietly posted the full study online in 2017, when he published a book, “Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” One of its footnotes mentions in passing that passages and pages omitted from the study are available on his website.