For a large part of the world’s people, China has now become more popular than the United States. This has emerged in a recent global opinion survey by the Washington-based research institution the Pew Research Center. It is the first time the organisation has recorded such a result since it began tracking global attitudes in 2002.
The survey, conducted among more than 42,000 people in 36 countries, found that people in 25 countries showed a more positive attitude towards China than towards the United States. By contrast, the United States’ image on the world stage has been considerably tarnished compared with before.
The wind behind China: In countries such as Spain, Indonesia, Italy, Greece and Canada, opinion has leaned heavily towards China. China’s popularity has also touched record levels in Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Turkey.
Backing the US: Of the 36 countries surveyed, the United States is still more popular in only six. These include Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Japan and Israel, known as staunch US allies.
Income and regional variation: China’s popularity was generally higher in middle-income countries and more negative in wealthy ones. The exception was Singapore, whose people are positive about China despite high per-capita income. In Asia, the most positive towards China was Pakistan (90%) and the most negative was Japan (11%).
On who people trust more to handle world affairs — China’s President Xi Jinping or US President Donald Trump — the survey found that overall global confidence in both is quite low (below 50%). But Xi Jinping is somewhat ahead of Trump.
Researchers said that while people worldwide did not give very extreme opinions about Xi Jinping, in Trump’s case people showed intensely positive or intensely negative (extreme) reactions. The highest confidence in Trump, at 68%, came from the Philippines, and the lowest, at 4%, came from the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to researchers, the two countries’ foreign policies played the main role behind this difference in popularity. Policy of interference: 75% of those surveyed think the United States interferes excessively in other countries’ internal affairs. For China, that figure is only 45%.
US policy volatility: Even while the survey was under way, events such as Trump’s hardline remarks about taking over Greenland, the US effort to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the emergence of a war situation with Iran had unsettled people around the world.
According to experts, although China’s system of government is authoritarian and President Xi Jinping is an authoritarian leader, in the current global situation many countries see China’s policy as more ‘predictable’ or stable. Alongside this, Beijing’s sustained diplomatic and economic efforts to raise its image in developing countries are also among the reasons for this popularity.
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