A series of public opinion surveys about China have made headlines recently. This week, the Asia Society Policy Institute published the Global Public Opinion on China interactive database, which aggregates worldwide polling data from over 2,500 surveys from 160 countries to show how global views on China have changed over time. It also includes short analyses of COVID-19’s impact on China’s image, public opinion on China in the Global South, and overall global opinion on China. Here is a sample from the section on views from the Global South, which showed great variation and challenged the common but reductive paradigm of a Global North-South divide:

In Iran, most surveys collected since 2020 have produced negative results. Although political ties have been warm, historically, China’s image among Iran’s predominantly Shi’a Muslim population has not been correspondingly positive. Also, the 2023 Iran–Saudi Arabia deal brokered in Beijing has seemingly failed to win over Iranian citizens.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, positive and negative views of China were roughly balanced through most of the 2010s, but China’s image improved from 2018 onward. This suggests the positions taken by most of the region’s governments, applauding the mass internment and re-education of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority populations as counter-terrorism achievements, have neutralized the effects of Western media reporting on the issue. China’s aggregate approval rating across the region has remained positive, even through the pandemic.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, citizens have generally leaned positive by a factor of 3 to 1. Although the pandemic was a drag on China’s otherwise positive image in various parts of Africa, the 223 million citizens of the continent’s largest power, Nigeria, showed little sign of blaming Beijing despite social media frenzies over instances of racist treatment of Africans in southern China early in the pandemic.

Closer to home, East Asia is a region divided. Views of China in Northeast Asia — Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan — are famously cold. But to the south, majorities in most ASEAN countries express positive feelings despite China’s historically disruptive role in the region and its current South China Sea policies laying claim to the “maritime heart of Southeast Asia.” [Source]

How are citizens from over 160 countries reacting to China's growing economic, political, and social footprint? ASPI’s #CenterforChinaAnalysis tracks and visualizes this in a new interactive website Global Public Opinion on China (GPOC).

Here is how it works 🧵👇(1/5) pic.twitter.com/dHly5pFAU8

— Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) (@AsiaPolicy) December 2, 2024

In late October, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Ipsos conducted a series of surveys on how the American public views the U.S.-China relationship. While bilateral relations have become significantly strained and given way to intense competition for global influence, the negative views of China displayed by respondents were coupled with an awareness of the costs of military conflict. Here are some of the key findings of the survey:

American views of China have hit an all-time low in Council polling: 26 out of 100 on the Council’s 0–100 feeling thermometer, down from 32 in 2022.

A majority of Americans (55%) say the United States should actively work to limit the growth of China’s power, while four in 10 (40%) say the United States should undertake friendly cooperation and engagement with China.

Americans’ top goals for US-China relations: avoiding a military conflict (69% very important) and maintaining the US high-tech edge (60%).

Half of Americans (49%) view China as more influential than the United States in Asia (30% equally influential, 21% US more influential).

A majority of Americans (56%) say US-China trade does more to weaken US national security (39% more to strengthen). [Source]

Another survey published around the same time offered a view from China. Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) published its 2024 report, Chinese Outlook on International Security. The report explores Chinese views on global security, China’s security in the world, other countries, priorities for handling international security, and U.S.-China relations. CISS director Da Wei discussed the findings in more depth in an episode of the Sinica Podcast. Here are the report’s main findings:

1. Respondents are increasingly pessimistic about the current state and future of international security.

2. Respondents feel relatively positive about China’s current state and future of international security.

3. Respondents are still supportive of China opening up to the world, although the support has slightly decreased.

4. Respondents significantly value the use of China’s economic power in diplomacy.

5. Respondents believe that the United States is attempting to suppress China’s development.

6. Respondents’ negative attitudes towards the United States are directed to the government and not ordinary people.

7. Respondents are optimistic about China’s potential to enhance its global status in the future. [Source]

Other smaller, more recent surveys on these topics have also made headlines. This week, the 20th Japan-China Joint Public Opinion Poll was released on Monday by Tokyo-based think tank The Genron NPO and Beijing-based China International Publishing Group. The poll showed that 87.7 percent of Chinese respondents said they had a negative impression of Japan, up by about a quarter from last year’s survey, while 89 percent of Japanese respondents had a negative impression of China, a slight decrease from last year. The number of Chinese respondents who thought bilateral relations were “very important” dropped nearly 34 percentage points to a record low, marking “the worst deterioration in public sentiment seen in the twenty years of this poll,” according to The Genron NPO. The Global Times Institute also released a survey last month on U.S.-China relations showing increasing concern about the current state of bilateral ties. Finally, last week the German think tank MERICS began soliciting replies for its flagship China Forecast 2025 survey, whose findings will be unveiled at an event in January.