China, Xi now more popular than US, Trump: Survey
What's the story
China has overtaken the United States in popularity across most of the 36 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center in early 2026. The survey, which included 42,151 adults between February 8 and May 13, found that favorable views of China have reached record highs in many areas. In contrast, perceptions of the US have worsened.
Survey findings
Shift in global attitudes
For the first time since Pew began tracking these attitudes in 2002, more people have a favorable view of China than the United States in 25 of the 36 countries surveyed.
Spain, Indonesia, Italy, Greece and Canada are among those that have shifted toward China.
Only six countries, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Japan and Israel, still prefer the US over China, the survey finds.
Most of these nations are all long-time allies of the United States.
US favorability
Middle-income countries had favorable view of China
The survey also found that middle-income countries tend to have a more favorable view of China while wealthier nations are more skeptical.
Asia-Pacific respondents had the highest favorable and negative perceptions of China in the survey.
Approximately 90% of Pakistanis appear to favor China, but just 11% of Japanese do.
Leader comparison
Leadership ratings
The survey also compared confidence in US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to "do the right thing" in world affairs.
While both leaders received low overall confidence scores, with most of the scores below 50%, more countries trusted Xi over Trump.
In 22 of the 36 countries surveyed, views of Xi were more favorable.
Pakistan and Japan gave Xi the highest and lowest rankings in the survey, with 83% and 7%, respectively.
Freedom perception
Personal freedoms
In general, respondents expressed low confidence in both Trump and Xi.
But in respect to personal freedoms, the US was rated more positively than China. However, this gap has been narrowing since 2021.
In many countries such as Sweden and Canada, fewer people now believe that the US government respects personal freedoms compared to five years ago.