Top Russia threat perception is decreasing while China fears are fueled by conservatives

      According to a recent poll, half of Americans believe China is the biggest threat to the country. This sharp partisan divide is being exacerbated by conservative Republicans who no longer consider Russia to be the biggest threat to the US.   Almost three-quartersIn a recent Pew Research Centre poll, 74% of conservative Republicans and 47% of moderate Republicans cited China as the greatest threat to the United States. Nearly 40% of Democrats followed suit.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The survey comes as Russia has been engaged for more than two years in an unprovoked invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine. With the help of Western armaments and a NATO pledge to prevent the conflict from spreading, Ukraine has successfully turned the tide against Russia, deterring the invaders and enforcing significant losses in personnel and military hardware. In retaliation, Russia has made a number of statements that escalate the situation, threatening nuclear war and a larger confrontation that would involve Western states.                                                                                  However, only 8% of conservative Republicans and 14% of moderate Republicans identified the "Evil Empire" of Ronald Reagan as the worst threat to the United States. Comparatively, 27% of liberal Democrats and 23% of moderate Democrats said Russia was their country of choice. 17% of the comments came from Russia. "No one," which matched with North Korea for the second-highest responses (2%), was the third most often ment ioned danger. Nearly a quarter of those who respond                                                                                                                                                                             China has never before been ranked as the top threat in a recent survey of Americans' threat perceptions, signalling a gradual increase in respondents' mistrust of the nation as Beijing has grown more active in staking territorial claims in nearby international waters. Beijing has also indicated that it wants to establish more control over Taiwan, which it sees as a province gone rogue. When the study was performed in 2007, China placed third. In 2014, China placed second, and in 2019, China and Russia tied for first place. Age and gender had an impact on how people saw China. Men were also more inclined to call out China than women, and older respondents were more likely to do so than younger respondents. The gap in respondents' impressions of Russia by age and gender was noticeably less pronounced.    While Americans perceived China and Russia to provide comparable degrees of harm to U.S. national security, substantially more respondents believed that China poses "a great deal" more of a threat to the American economy. This could be one explanation for the shift in thinking.        The most fervent followers of former President Donald Trump, however, may also be responsible for the major shift in attitudes towards Russia, especially in light of the changes in the views of the most conservative Republicans. Strange and lewd rumours about Trump's past interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually led to inquiries. Putin definitely sided with Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite the fact that there was no evidence of collaboration between Trump and Moscow. Trump supporters grew increasingly determined to place blame.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Trump alienated traditional allies and, in the process, downplayed the threat posed by Russia while actively working to restore Putin's standing and reintegrate Russia on the global stage by making the claim that other NATO members were not paying their fair share and that the cost of the alliance was too high.The "enemies list" of American far-right conservatives significantly overlapped with Putin's most notable political adversaries after eight years of the Obama administration.As a result, views towards Russia, and notably Putin, softened significantly on the political right to the point where more than half of Trump's most ardent followers recently stated that they now support Putin.