Three years ago, only a fraction of the global public held more favorable opinions of China than of the U.S. Today, China and even Russia have a better global image.
Key takeaways:
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The survey’s most striking finding lies in the rapid reversal of global perceptions. In just three years, many countries shifted from viewing the U.S. more positively than China to preferring China over the United States.
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Much of Europe and the Asia-Pacific is moving toward strategic ambiguity, with growing distrust toward both Washington and Beijing rather than alignment with either side.
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The decline of U.S. global appeal appears driven more by worsening perceptions of America than by rising enthusiasm for China. Trump-era polarization, tariffs, and geopolitical instability have significantly damaged trust in the United States world.
This week NIRA Data presented the results of its annual public opinion survey, commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies, which was conducted in 85 countries worldwide between March 19 and April 21, 2026. The results are not surprising but still offer valuable new evidence and nuance about the significant changes the world is witnessing. Essentially the data shows how steeply the United States is losing its global appeal in recent years.
Just three years ago, the U.S. enjoyed a comfortable lead globally in terms of soft power. Almost no one had a good opinion of China and a bad opinion of the United States. The situation has changed dramatically in a short span of time. Today, most countries around the world now view China more favorably than the United States.
It is useful to note that most people in the world are not choosing between China and the United States. Back in 2023, public in most countries had positive perceptions of both China and the U.S., followed closely by those countries where the public had a better image of the U.S. than of China.
Today, the most common category of countries is the group of those that have a negative public image of the United States and a positive image of China. This is especially common among the countries in Middle East and North Africa, but also applies to some countries from the Asia-Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Europe.
The second most common category of countries are those that have negative opinions of both the United States and China. This is where much of Europe and a big chunk of the Asia-Pacific now sits. While some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America still have positive views of both the U.S. and China, almost all have a better image of China than of the U.S.
Today, countries that have positive image of the United States and a negative image of China are few and far between. Only Israel is decidedly in that category, with Ukraine and the Philippines on the edges.
These shifts in global public opinion are staggering, and well visible in the chart below. In the scope of just three years, the world has basically shifted entirely when it comes to public preferences of the United States and China.
To underline just how bad the U.S. image worldwide has gotten: according to the data, even Russia is now seen more positively than the United States. Interestingly, among the three great powers, only China is perceived on average positively, with both the U.S. and Russia being seen predominantly in negative light.
Although some of these trends started in 2024, much of these dynamics can obviously be attributed to the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025. It is indeed the image of the United States that has changed the most, not the image of China or Russia. In other words, it is primarily the worsening of the U.S. image that makes China (and Russia) look better, relatively speaking. The reasons for why much of the world turned (sharply) negative on the U.S. are thus relatively easy to explain by pointing to Trump’s domestic and foreign policies.
However, there have also been absolute improvements in global public perceptions of China and Russia. To properly explain these, more research will be needed, but some simple explanations can be suggested.
The beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 did affect Russia’s image negatively. Yet with the time, this shock has been slowly waning; thus Russia’s image has been steadily improving, albeit remaining within the negative range.
China’s image has followed a similar trajectory as Russia’s, so in a way, a similar explanation can be provided. After the shocks of COVID-19, and domestic events such as crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, there hasn’t been significant negative news coming from China in recent years. Eventually, China’s image has even slipped into the positive territory on average. With Trump filling the information space in Western media with his wars, tariffs, and domestic turmoil, there is little space left for the issues related to China.
Interestingly, the data from NIRA provides some interesting nuances to the development of China’s global image. It is in developed countries where perceptions of China have improved in recent years (although remaining negative), while China’s image in much of developing world actually got somewhat less positive (while remaining positive overall). One could suggest that this is indeed what less attention on China would do: making its image somewhat more neutral.
The shifting global preferences of how the United States and China are viewed may signal the future policy choices of countries worldwide. The U.S. obviously remains hugely powerful due to its economic, military, political, and other sources of power, so its immediate influence may not be affected much.
However, the global trust the U.S. had enjoyed is now badly damaged, and countries everywhere that can afford it will try their best to hedge, de-risk, and design a plan B – with the goal of decreasing exposure to the United States. If successful (still an if), these trends will result in lower American international power and influence.
Yet with more than two years of Trump presidency still to come, these trends can continue to develop quite a bit. And China will likely be one of the main beneficiaries.
The charts in this article are used with the permission from NIRA. The article was originally published by The Diplomat.
