Xi Jinping’s China is gaining popularity

More than 14,000 people in 14 countries, including Sweden, have been asked, among other things, what they think about China, about President Xi Jinping, about how the country has dealt with the crown crisis.

Pew recently conducted a similar poll on the United States and Donald Trump. It was a disturbing reading for the 45th president of the United States.

But this is an equally bleak reading for Xi Jinping. For China, it is reaching historic levels of unpopularity in several countries.

And the Swedes are one of the most critical. Up to 85 percent have a negative or very negative image of China. Only the Japanese are tougher at 86 percent.

The Swedish image of China has drastically deteriorated

And the curve points in the completely wrong direction for China over time. In the UK, for example, only 16 per cent had a negative image in 2005. This year the figure is 74 per cent.

Pew first asked Swedes the question in 2007 and then 40 percent had a negative image. Therefore, this has more than doubled.

China has received much negative publicity and criticism in Sweden in recent years, especially around the imprisonment of publisher Gui Minhai. China’s ambassador to Sweden has maintained a much higher and more offensive profile than his representatives.

And the list of negative international news about China is growing: China’s actions in the South China Sea, the detention camps for Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, the new security laws in Hong Kong, etc.

President Xi Jinping is also not popular abroad. The median value is 78 percent of respondents who say they have little or no confidence in it.

48 percent: China dominates economically

In Sweden, the figure is even higher, 82 percent. Only Donald Trump among international leaders gets worse marks.

This also applies globally. Xi and Trump are in a category of their own. French Emmanuel Macron and German Angela Merkel, for example, receive significantly higher marks.

So far, China has successfully battled the corona virus, but it has also come under fire for initially keeping the country a secret and misleading the outside world about the severity of the situation.

This is also reflected in the Pew measurement. On average, 61 percent believe that China mishandled the crown crisis. Only the United States has a lower value, 84 percent. 60 percent, on the other hand, believe the EU handled the crown crisis well. 73 percent of those surveyed also pass through their own country.

So isn’t there good news for China? Well, in the economic field. 48 percent of those surveyed believe that China is now the dominant economic power in the world, only 35 percent believe that the United States is.

America’s GDP is still higher than China’s, but even before the crown pandemic, China was poised to overtake the United States in a few years. The virus may have accelerated the historical moment.