US people support India over China: Survey

"Polls have shown Americans are more sympathetic towards India, and this includes differences depending on political affiliation," read the Lowy Institute website.

This question is important as the US has increased diplomatic and military cooperation with India, both bilaterally as well as via multilateral groupings such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which has Australia and Japan as its other members.

Most surveys explore the relationship between the US and China or between the US and India, rather than US opinions about conflict between China and India.

"To explore this question, we recently conducted a poll to directly compare US public views on potential military or economic strife between China and India," read the website.

The findings presented show that 63.6% of responders would have the US support neither India nor China if they were to engage in military conflict with each other, compared to 60.6% regarding economic conflict with each other.

For those who did choose to support one of the countries, however, it was overwhelmingly in favour of India.

"For a military conflict between India and China, 32.6% preferred that the US support India, as opposed to 3.8% who preferred that the US support China. For an economic conflict, 36.3% respondents preferred US support for India, while 3.1% preferred US support for China," the website said.

A comfortable majority of 66.7% of Democrats prefer to support neither China nor India if they were to enter a military conflict, while 59.5% Democrats prefer to support neither China nor India if they were to enter an economic conflict.

On the other hand, for those who do support the US supporting one of the countries, 27.8% prefer that the US support India and 5.5% prefer the US support China in a military conflict, while an even greater 37% prefer that the US support India and 3.5% prefer China in an economic conflict.

These trends were also prominent among Republican respondents, of whom 49.7% preferred that US not support either country during a military conflict and 54.8% during an economic conflict.

Among Republicans who preferred that the US support one of the two countries in a military conflict, 47.1% preferred supporting India and 3.2% chose to support China.

For an economic conflict, 41.9% chose to support India, while 3.2% chose to support China.