Reflections on the face-off between China and the US

For nearly two decades, one finding in Pew Research Center’s global surveys was as reliable as the sunrise. The United States was always viewed more favorably than China. But that era is now over.

In its July 15 report, which was based on interviews with more than 42,000 people across 36 countries, the Washington-based think tank found that China is now viewed more favorably than the US in most nations surveyed.

The same report marked a second milestone. Across the 20 countries Pew has tracked annually since 2023, the median confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping now exceeds confidence in US President Donald Trump by 10 points. 

The shift appears all the more salient as it comes on the heels of China’s soft power falling to Covid-19 pandemic-era lows just a few years ago. Given Pew’s stature as the gold standard for tracking global public opinion, the symbolic weight of this reversal is hard to overstate. 

Striking as it is, the result is less a bolt from the blue than the confirmation of a trend already visible elsewhere. In Gallup’s global ratings for 2025, China’s median approval rating (36%) edged past that of the US (31%) across more than 130 countries.

American volatility

That is the widest margin in China’s favor that Gallup has recorded in nearly 20 years.

In a May 2025 opinion piece for the South China Morning Post, I observed that the Trump administration’s tariffs, aid cuts, and disdain for allies were actively ceding the soft-power contest to Beijing. 

Other foreign policy scholars have described the latest Pew results as unsurprising for similar reasons. They noted that the volatility of American policy has hardened international sentiment against the US, while China now appears as to be more reliable. 

Earlier data from Pew had already pointed in this direction. In its July 2025 release, it showed views of the US had worsened and opinions of China had improved across many countries, with the two trend lines steadily converging. 

The 2026 report simply records the moment they crossed. Three forces, working in combination, explain the reversal. The first is China’s investment push. After years of ridicule about its clumsy propaganda, Beijing’s soft-power portfolio is finally producing hits. 

China is now viewed more favorably than the US in many democracies

Culturally, the “Chinamaxxing” phenomenon – a viral social-media trend in which young Westerners embrace Chinese lifestyles – has given China the kind of organic, bottom-up cachet long enjoyed by Japan and South Korea.

This has been amplified by breakout products such as the video game Black Myth: Wukong, the film Ne Zha 2, and Labubu dolls. 

China’s development model has also gained prestige. Its dominance in electric vehicles, batteries, and infrastructure has made “the China model” an object of emulation rather than derision – so much so that Washington now practices Beijing’s industrial policy. 

And diplomatically, Xi has mounted a sustained charm offensive through his Global Development, Global Security, Global Civilization, and AI governance initiatives. This has positioned China as a provider of public goods and a champion of the Global South.

The second force is compositional. Nearly half the countries in Pew’s sample are middle-income, and this is precisely where China enjoys its clearest advantage over the US in emerging economies of Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia. 

Reliable partner

Record approval highs were found in Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey. Meanwhile, the US has been hemorrhaging goodwill in the high-income democracies that were once its reservoir of admiration.

That points to arguably the most important force – this is a story driven more by an American decline in soft power than by a Chinese surge. Gallup’s numbers made that point. China’s net approval in 2025 was just below zero at -1%, while the US plunged to a record-low -15%. 

Pew’s detailed data tells the same story. The think tank concluded that China’s lead is “based on” deteriorating opinions of the US. But Washington’s loss does not translate into a commensurate gain for Beijing. 

Nowhere has the collapse been steeper than in Sweden, where the share of people viewing the US as a reliable partner plunged from 83% in 2022 to 31% today or a 52-point drop. Over the same period, China gained only 15 points – from 12% to 27%. 

The pattern repeats among Washington’s other close allies. In Canada, the share calling the US a reliable partner cratered from 83% in 2022 to 35% , compared with China’s 30-point increase. Even the leadership crossover reflects Trump’s fall more than Xi’s rise. 

The United States has seen a steep decline in favorability among its Western allies…

… while it retains a favorability edge among many of China’s neighbors

Confidence in both men remains low, and in Europe – where Xi now outpolls Trump by double digits in seven countries – his best rating is still a modest 37% in the United Kingdom. The scoreboard changed mostly because one team kept scoring own goals.

The shift is not geographically uniform. It is concentrated among Washington’s Western allies – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and much of Europe – as well as in parts of Latin America, where views of the US as the more reliable partner are now evenly split.  

Conspicuously, it has not occurred among China’s neighbors. The US retains its edge in just six countries, four of them in the Indo-Pacific. They are India, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea, along with Israel and Poland. 

In the Philippines, 81% see Washington as a reliable partner compared with 42% for Beijing. Proximity to Chinese power, particularly when accompanied by maritime disputes, appears to blunt Beijing’s appeal. Distance makes the heart grow fonder – proximity does not.

There are at least two reasons to doubt that this reversal is permanent. First, soft power is far more mercurial than hard power, and public opinion can swing within a single year. The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s annual survey of Southeast Asia illustrates this vividly. 

Two powers

In 2024 when asked to choose between the two powers, respondents sided with China for the first time (50.5 to 49.5%). In 2025, they flipped back to the US (52.3 to 47.7%). This year they flipped again to China (52 to 48%). 

Sentiment that oscillates this easily is a weathervane, not a monument.

Second, while Beijing’s favorability ratings have been converging with those of Washington, the underlying foundations of soft power have not. Soft power ultimately derives from credibility rather than propaganda. 

Inside China, there are no signs of meaningful improvement in rule of law or political freedom – if anything, the trajectory points the other way – and global publics have noticed. 

In only 11 of the 36 countries Pew surveyed do around half or more say the Chinese government respects the personal freedoms of its people.

Trump’s authoritarian tendencies have also badly damaged the United States’ image, but so long as American institutions and rule of law endure, respect for American democracy and diplomacy could plausibly recover under a more conventional future administration. 

Pew data already demonstrated such a rebound. Major indicators of US soft power rose sharply after Joe Biden took office in 2021, reversing the steep declines recorded during the first Trump administration. 

So, the US soft-power deficit may prove cyclical, while China’s may prove structural. Still, the 2026 survey marks a genuine and historic shift in global public sentiment. Yet it is better understood as a relative repositioning than as a decisive victory for Chinese soft power. 

Beijing now looks, in the eyes of many, like the more accessible and predictable partner, especially as Washington’s retrenchment creates a vacuum. But the Pew data does not show a broad transfer of affection or admiration. 

Self-inflicted wounds

China has won the comparison, but has not yet won hearts and minds. For now, the numbers read less as an unconditional endorsement of Chinese soft power than as a sobering indictment of America’s self-inflicted wounds. 

And unlike amputations, wounds can still heal – unless we continue to inflict them on ourselves.

Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Data visualization by Austin Steinhart and Will Merrow.

This edited article was published by the Council on Foreign Relations under a Creative Commons license. Read the original here. 

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