Unfavorable views of China have soared to record highs in many countries in a new global survey by the Pew Research Center, with the highest in Australia.
The majority of respondents in each of the 14 advanced economies had negative views of China. But in nine of them, China’s unpopularity was at the highest level Pew had ever recorded since it began tracking this issue more than a decade ago: in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Sweden and the United States. South Korea.
A median of 73% of respondents in 14 countries (Belgium, Japan, Italy, Denmark and France, in addition to the nine mentioned above) had unfavorable views of China.
Australians had suffered the most, with 81%, up 24 points from 2019; The last year has seen a sharp deterioration in ties between the two countries. Negative views from China increased by double digits in the past year in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the US, South Korea and Spain.
And China’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic appeared to be central to its record unpopularity. A median of 61% of respondents in the 14 countries surveyed said that China had done a poor job dealing with the epidemic, worse in all cases than their own country and global bodies like the WHO.
China’s Covid-19 failure was reflected in the way people in these countries perceived President Xi Jinping. A median of 78% did not trust Xi’s ability to do the right thing in the seven out of 10 countries in world affairs.
But Xi’s unpopularity was surpassed by President Donald Trump in some countries. While 78% of Germans, for example, had no faith in Xi, 80% said the same about Trump, who was more distrustful than Xi, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Frenchman Emmanuel Macron and the Briton Boris Johnson.
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