How toxic Trump helped Xi’s China become ‘cool’

American President Donald Trump is known for his toxic tantrums and shattered alliances. In comparison, China’s leader Xi Jinping is secretive and reclusive. He is obsessed with purges and guilty of imprisoning one million Muslims in Xinjiang province over the past decade.

Yet it is Xi’s China and not Trump’s MAGA-infested America that came out on top in Gallup’s World Poll released last month. Up to 36% of those surveyed backed the biggest authoritarian state on Earth, compared with 31% for the so-called leader of democracy.

What an upside-down planet we live on. “Trump did not go into politics to make China great again,” the European Council on Foreign Relations pointed out in a separate study.

“But that is what [a survey] of global public opinion from [the Berlin-based pan-European think tank] suggests he has done in the eyes of the world,” it stated.

Foreign Policy went even further this week. “One of the more striking features of the Trump administration’s foreign policy – not the chosen ends, but its preferred means – is its near-total disdain for ‘soft power,’” Stephen M Walt, of Harvard University, told FP magazine.

In recent times, the American image has suffered immensely.

Katharina Abel, DW

Soft with a hard center:

• Next week, Trump plans to visit Beijing for critical talks with Xi. His approval ratings continue to decline at home, while his relations with traditional allies are deeply strained.
• Xi, in contrast, has witnessed a surge in China’s “soft power” with the “Chinamaxxing” online craze. Even amid the Great Firewall repression, the country has become “cool.”

Delve deeper: “The success of cultural products like the blockbuster film Ne Zha 2 also saw the country jump to second place in the Global Soft Power Index 2025,” Pan Wang, at the University of New South Wales, explained in an analysis for East Asia Forum.

Between the lines: “Western users’ favorable assessments of China’s high-tech infrastructure, public safety, accessible healthcare and convenience are combined with their disillusionment over perceptions of US decline,” she said last month.

Big picture: These “perceptions” are real. “For decades, the American Way of Life held a special promise for young people around the world. But in recent times, the American image has suffered immensely,” Katharina Abel, of the German media giant DW, warned.

China Factor comment: For Xi and his Communist Party cronies, Trump is a gift that keeps on giving amid the rotting remains of his American Dream.