Negative Opinions of China at Record High in Nine Nations, Poll Says

(Bloomberg) -- Negative perceptions of China have reached record highs in the U.S. and other major economies, according to a global survey by the Pew Research Center.

The polling found that a majority of respondents across 14 surveyed countries held an unfavorable opinion of China. In nine of the countries -- including the U.S., Germany, the U.K., South Korea, Australia and Canada -- negative opinion reached its highest point since the nonpartisan organization began polling on the topic more than a decade ago.

“Views of China have grown more negative in recent years across many advanced economies, and unfavorable opinion has soared over the past year,” Pew said in the report published on Tuesday.

The worsening global views of Beijing come as national leaders have criticized China's early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the country's human rights record and its increasingly assertive stance in international affairs. China has emerged as an issue in the U.S. election, with President Donald Trump ramping up rhetoric against his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. China's policies in its far-western region of Xinjiang and in Hong Kong have also drawn criticism abroad.

Negative views of China increased the most in Australia amid rising tensions between the two governments, with 81% now viewing the Asian superpower unfavorably, an increase of 24 percentage points since last year. In the U.K., 74% now view China negatively, up 19 points. In the U.S., negative views have increased 13 points since last year. In Sweden, negative views of China reached 85% and in Japan the figure was 86%.

The results highlight the difficulty Beijing faces in winning over global opinion, even as it has distributed aid to other nations and pledged to make any potential Chinese Covid-19 vaccine available to the world. Across the 14 countries surveyed, a median of 61% said China had done a bad job handling the virus. Only the U.S. scored worse, with a median of 84% saying it handled the outbreak poorly.

The survey also suggests that perceptions of Xi are contributing to China's declining reputation. Negative views of Xi reached all-time highs in all countries for which past data was available, with the exceptions of Japan and Spain. A median of just 19% of respondents said they had confidence in Xi to do the right thing in global affairs, a figure just above Trump's 17% on the same measure,

The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted by Gallup and Abt Associates across the 14 countries with varying margins of error.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.