Comparing Views of the U.S. and China in 24 Countries

On balance, views of the U.S. are much more positive than views of China, and increasingly so.

Opinion skews toward the U.S. most heavily in the high-income countries surveyed, with differences of 50 percentage points or more in favor of the U.S. in Poland, Japan and South Korea. In all three countries, more than seven-in-ten offer positive ratings of the U.S., and fewer than three-in-ten have favorable opinions of China.

In most middle-income countries surveyed, views of both powers are generally positive, leading to a smaller difference in views. Nigeria is the lone public surveyed with warmer opinions of China than of the U.S., though both the U.S. and China receive positive ratings from large majorities of Nigerians.

Hungary – notably the only country where positive ratings of the U.S. are the minority opinion – and Kenya stand out for having near equal shares of adults who rate the U.S. and China favorably. Just under half offer positive ratings of each superpower in Hungary, and roughly seven-in-ten Kenyans see the U.S. and China favorably.

Is favorability of the U.S. and China zero-sum?

An alternate way to think about favorability is to look at whether individuals in a given country hold positive views of one superpower and not the other – essentially a “zero-sum” mindset.

In nine countries, this seems to be the case: A majority or plurality has favorable views of the U.S. but not China. In both Japan and Poland, 63% of adults have a favorable view of the U.S. and an unfavorable view of China.

Particularly in middle-income countries, though, pluralities of a third or more have favorable views of both world powers. This includes majorities in both Nigeria and Kenya. No more than a fifth of adults in any country surveyed have a favorable opinion of China and an unfavorable opinion of the U.S.

The U.S. and China are home to two of the world’s largest militaries. China’s active forces are nearly double the size of the United States’, though the U.S. outspends China on defense.

Majorities in every country surveyed say the American military is above average or the best, while the same is only true for China in about half of the countries surveyed.

In most countries surveyed, the U.S. military receives significantly higher ratings than China’s. There are three exceptions: In Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, all NATO allies of the U.S., the United States’ and China’s militaries are about equally likely to be considered above average or the best. However, the U.S. military gets more recognition than China’s when considering only those who say each is the best.

Israelis stand out for their near unanimous positive ratings of the U.S. forces. While a majority of Israelis rate China’s military highly, the 39-point gap in ratings is the largest of any country surveyed.

Unlike other measures of hard and soft power, there is little difference in ratings of the American and Chinese militaries between middle- and high-income countries.

In 2020, China replaced the U.S. as the world’s largest film market after a number of successful local productions, and its government released a five-year improvement plan for its film industry a year later. Most of the top 10 highest grossing films globally were nonetheless still American productions in 2022.

Global views of entertainment from each country parallel these trends. U.S. entertainment – including its music, movies and television – is more than four times more likely to be seen as the best or above average than China’s (a 24-country median of 71% vs. 17%, respectively).

High-income countries view American entertainment more favorably than middle-income countries. Entertainment ratings skew toward the U.S. most heavily in Israel, where adults are 71 percentage points more likely to call American entertainment, rather than Chinese, above average or the best. Differences greater than 60 points in favor of the U.S. are also seen among the Dutch, Italians, Poles and Swedes.

The sub-Saharan African publics surveyed offer the highest praise for Chinese entertainment, especially in Nigeria, where 67% say it is the best or above average. Even so, each public gives U.S. entertainment higher ratings.

In May 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans for bolstering China’s education system to spread its global influence and create a “‘Study in China’ brand.” Currently, out of the top 100 universities in the world, as rated by the Times Higher Education, only seven are in China, whereas 34 are in the U.S.

This disparity is reflected in views of the two countries’ universities. Across the 24 countries surveyed, a median of 68% say U.S. universities are above average or the best, while just 35% say the same of China’s.

Universities in the U.S. receive significantly more positive ratings than universities in China in all countries surveyed. Middle-income countries give both countries’ universities some of the most favorable evaluations, but the gap in the ratings of the two are similar to the gaps seen in high-income countries.

Europe is home to some of the largest differences as well as the smallest. Poles, Greeks and Hungarians are at least 40 points more likely to say American universities are above average or the best than Chinese universities. The differences are much smaller – in large part due to less positive outlooks on American universities – in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.

Notably, the U.S. has one of the least positive perceptions of American universities, along with several other advanced economies. About half in each saying American universities are the best or above average.

As of 2021, both the U.S. and China fall above the world average on the United Nations’ Human Development Index, but the U.S. is considered a very high human development country while China is labeled a high human development country. The difference is reflected in international ratings of the two countries’ standards of living. Though ratings of both vary greatly, greater shares say the standard of living in the U.S. is above average or the best in every country surveyed.

Israelis and Poles stand out for holding particularly skewed views of each country’s standard of living, in favor of the U.S. In Israel and Poland, roughly eight-in-ten regard the standard of living in the U.S. in high regard, while 9% and 19% say the same of China, respectively.

In several high-income countries, ratings of the standard of living are low for both the U.S. and China. For example, just 16% of Germans see the standard of living in the U.S. as above average or the best and 8% say the same of China. In comparison, middle-income countries offer some of the most positive evaluations of the standards of living in the two economic powerhouses.

The U.S. is generally considered by experts to be more democratic than China. Among other organizations, Freedom House describes the U.S. as “free” and China as “not free,” and International IDEA labels the U.S. a “democracy” versus China’s “authoritarian regime.”

Public opinion follows the same pattern. In a survey of 17 high-income publics in 2021, the U.S. government was far more likely than the Chinese government to be seen as respecting its people’s personal freedoms, and previous surveys of both high- and middle-income countries have recorded similar findings. The U.S. government was seen as more respectful of its people’s personal freedoms than China’s even as it received increasingly negative ratings between 2013 and 2018.

In 2021, the differences between ratings of the United States’ and China’s treatment of personal freedoms were especially pronounced in South Korea and Taiwan. In both, roughly three-quarters said the U.S. respects its people’s personal freedoms compared with only about one-in-ten who said the same for China. Differences of about 50 percentage points or more were also measured across most of Europe. Conversely, Singapore stood out for having the smallest difference and being the most likely to consider China respectful of its people’s personal freedoms.

When it comes to leaders, global publics are nearly three times more likely to have confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden than in Chinese President Xi Jinping (medians across 23 countries, not including the U.S., of 54% and 19%, respectively). Each country surveyed is more likely to have confidence in Biden than Xi, but this has not always been the case for ratings of the U.S. president.

The gap in confidence ratings of the U.S. president and the Chinese president has shifted greatly in the last 10 years with each American leader. Views of the two leaders were most similar in several countries when former President Donald Trump held office.

Views of Biden and Xi differ across high- and middle-income countries. Those in middle-income countries are more likely to rate Biden and Xi similarly. For example, 71% of Nigerians have confidence in Biden, while 62% say the same of Xi – a 9-point difference.

In high-income countries, the gap tends to be much larger – especially in parts of Europe, including Poland and Sweden.

In many places, though, respondents are less likely to offer an opinion on Xi than Biden. For example, in Hungary, 24% of respondents said they did not know the answer or declined to answer when asked about their confidence in Xi, while only 6% responded similarly when asked about Biden.