Where Data Tells the Story
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Pew Research Center surveys covering 36 countries this spring, drawing on the views of more than 42,000 adults, find that China is now seen more favourably than the United States in most of the places surveyed.
Plot a country's opinion of Washington against its opinion of Beijing, and four rough camps appear. Israel sits almost alone in the upper left, warmly pro American and cool on China, which fits with the fact that 80% of Israelis think the American government respects its people's freedoms, compared with just 15% who say so of China. Japan keeps rather different company nearby, wary of both powers though for different reasons, with a similarly wide freedoms gap paired with a noticeably colder read of America these days.
The most crowded quadrant is still the one at the bottom left, where wealthy democracies profess fatigue with both giants: Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Australia.
But nowhere has the swing been sharper than in the bottom right quadrant, where countries now feel warmer towards China than towards America, and which is full of familiar Asian names: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Pakistan. In Pakistan, 90% have a favourable view of China against just 14% who say the same of the United States. The Philippines, however, is the mirror image, still in Washington's sphere of influence.