Is The US Losing The World To China?

This post, authored by Noah Carl, is republished with permission from The Daily Sceptic

Which is the world’s leading nation: China or the US? China has a much bigger population. The American economy is larger when measured in terms of nominal GDP, though China’s is larger when measured at purchasing power parity. And while American military power still exceeds that of China, the gap is closing rapidly—particularly as the US depletes its stockpiles of critical weapon systems in Ukraine and the Middle East.

National statistics can only tell us so much, however. Another way to assess which country wins out is by appraising public opinion. Do people around the world see China or the US in a more positive light? Until recently, the answer would have been obvious: the US. China was still an emerging economic power with an opaque and authoritarian political system. Meanwhile, the US was enjoying its ‘unipolar moment’ as the ‘indispensable nation’.

This is no longer the case. In 2022, a major study by researchers at Cambridge University found that China was perceived more positively than the US among people in developing countries. On the other hand, the US was still perceived more positively among people in developed countries, and because the gap there was so large, the US was perceived more positively overall.

However, there are two caveats to this conclusion. The first is that the data only went up to 2022—and quite a lot has changed since then. The second is that the data were harmonised (i.e., combined) from about a dozen different datasets, which may have led to bias in the estimates for China, the US or both.

Two major cross-national surveys published this year show that China is now perceived more positively than the US—by a sizeable margin.

The first is the annual Democracy Perception Index, carried out for the Alliance of Democracies, a pro-Western thinktank. Based on data for 111,273 people from 100 countries, it found that perceptions of the US have been getting less favourable since 2023, while perceptions of China have been getting more favourable. As of 2025, the US is one of the world’s least popular countries, just ahead of Russia.

The second is the Spring Global Attitudes Survey, carried out by Pew Research. Based on data from 24 countries of varying income levels, it found the very same thing: the US has been getting less popular since 2023, while China has been getting more popular. Among ten high-income countries that are all US allies, China is now perceived about as favourably as the US. (It must therefore be perceived much more favourably in the world as a whole.)

There are likely two key reasons for this divergence: the first and more important one is Trump; the second is US support for Israel. We know that Trump matters because most of the decline in positive perceptions of the US came between 2024 and 2025 (when foreigners’ confidence in the US president fell dramatically).

But US support for Israel also matters. In the Democracy Perception Index, Israel was the second least popular country in the entire world (with Iran being the least popular). And perceptions of the US are particularly unfavourable among Muslims: even in places like Egypt and Jordan that receive billions in US foreign aid, China is vastly more popular.

There is a popular meme about Chinese President Xi Jinping, which depicts him with hyper-masculinised face alongside the caption: ‘Do nothing. Win.’ The meme reflects China’s foreign policy of non-interventionism—at least when compared to Russia and the US. Going by the latest public opinion data, it appears to be right on the money.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The post Is The US Losing The World To China? first appeared on modernity.