Pew survey finds China outpolling US in global favorability
China is viewed more favorably than the U.S. in 25 of 36 surveyed places, Pew says, as confidence in Washington and Trump has fallen.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
China now draws more favorable views than the United States in many parts of the world, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The shift matters because it marks a rare advantage for Beijing in a long-running measure of global opinion that had usually favored Washington.
Pew found that China was viewed more positively than the U.S. in 25 of the 36 countries and territories surveyed. The findings, released Wednesday, showed the U.S. ahead of China in only six countries.
The survey was conducted from February through May among more than 42,000 people across 35 countries, plus the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Pew reported country-level margins of error ranging from 2.3 to 5.5 percentage points.
Views of leaders also shifted
Pew also found that Chinese President Xi Jinping was viewed more favorably than U.S. President Donald Trump in 22 of the 36 places surveyed. That group included Canada, Mexico and major European countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
At the same time, Pew said many countries showed limited confidence in both leaders. The survey period overlapped with major strains involving the U.S., including the launch of a U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, according to The Associated Press.
Laura Silver, associate director of Pew’s Global Attitudes Research and one of the study’s researchers, told the AP the results represent the first time in about two decades of Pew tracking that China has held a clear favorability edge over the U.S. She said perceptions of the two countries had sometimes been close in prior years, but not significantly better for China.
Silver said the change followed a fading focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and a decline in international views of the United States. She also pointed to several actions that Pew found had hurt perceptions of Washington, including Trump’s demands involving Greenland, a U.S. military raid that captured Venezuela’s then-leader Nicolás Maduro, and U.S. handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Allies show some of the sharpest movement
Canada showed one of the clearest reversals in the Pew data. Pew found that 33% of Canadians viewed the U.S. favorably, down from 57% in 2023, while positive views of China rose from 14% to 44% over the same period.
The AP noted that Trump imposed a series of tariffs on Canadian goods last year and said Canada could become “the 51st state.” Pew’s findings also showed opinion shifts in several European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands.
In the United Kingdom, Pew found that views of the U.S. and China are now similar. In 2023, about six in 10 people in the U.K. viewed the U.S. positively, with Washington holding a 32-point advantage over Beijing, according to Pew.
Israel was the strongest exception in the survey. Pew found that about eight in 10 Israelis viewed the U.S. favorably, compared with 19% who held a positive view of China.
The other places where the U.S. still led China were Japan, India, South Korea, the Philippines and Poland. Pew said views of the U.S. have weakened in those countries as well in recent years.
The U.S. continued to rank ahead of China on whether governments respect personal freedoms, Pew said. But that advantage has narrowed, mainly because people in nearly every surveyed country have become less likely since 2021 to say the U.S. government respects its people’s personal freedoms, according to the report.
This story draws on original reporting from NPR.