— From Rapid Rise to Relative Repositioning

China’s international image cannot be reduced to a single numerical curve. Different surveys ask different questions: some measure overall favourability, while others ask whether China’s influence is mostly positive or negative. Their country samples also differ. Views in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia have long diverged from those in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the wider Global South. The periodisation below therefore describes a broad trajectory, grounded in long-running international surveys and political developments, rather than a single global consensus.

2001–2008 — Rapid rise and the expectation of integration

Following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, its improving image was driven first by economics. Foreign investment, export manufacturing, urbanisation and large-scale poverty reduction created the image of a rapidly modernising major developing country willing to participate in the global economic system. Many outside observers saw not only what China had already achieved, but also assumed that market reform and international engagement would continue to produce deeper institutional opening.

If an early period close to a high point must be identified, 2005 to 2008 is more defensible than any one particular year. This does not mean that every country viewed China positively. Rather, in several European countries with long-running data, negative views were then at their lowest levels. Pew later noted that, in every European country surveyed both in 2005 or 2006 and in 2021, unfavourable views of China had been lowest in the earlier period. Its review of the long-term trend supports that conclusion. The 2008 Beijing Olympics further increased the visibility of China’s organisational capacity, infrastructure and economic strength.

What mattered most in this period was not simply a higher level of favourability. China was still widely understood as a country integrating into the existing international order. Concerns about human rights, media freedom and political institutions existed, but they had not yet become the primary lens through which many countries interpreted China.

2008–2012 — From successful developing country to unavoidable major power

The 2008 global financial crisis altered the comparison. Western financial systems were badly shaken while China recovered relatively quickly. China was no longer seen merely as a country catching up. Its economic weight, trade relationships and policy autonomy increasingly made it a power capable of reshaping the balance of influence.

That did not mean a continuous improvement in China’s image. A 25-country BBC World Service and GlobeScan survey released in 2013 found that, across 21 tracking countries, positive views of China’s influence had fallen to 42% and negative views had risen to 39% — both changes of eight points from the preceding year. The report described this as the lowest point since tracking began in 2005. The original survey report shows that international opinion had already begun to diverge sharply in 2012–13.

This was an easily overlooked turning point. Rising Chinese power brought respect, opportunities and cooperation, but it also produced concern about competition, institutional difference and geopolitical influence. China’s image was no longer only a story of successful development. It also became a story about power changing the balance.

2013–2016 — High-level divergence rather than uniform decline

Between 2013 and 2016, China remained one of the world’s most important sources of growth, trade and investment. But in many high-income countries, the centre of discussion gradually moved from market opportunity to state capital, industrial policy, intellectual property, maritime disputes, cyber security and domestic governance. Public assessments increasingly split in two directions: many developing countries placed greater weight on infrastructure, trade and development opportunities, while many advanced democracies attached greater weight to institutions, rules and security.

For that reason, “high-level divergence” is more accurate than “general decline” for this period. China’s capability and attractiveness continued to grow, but it was no longer widely placed on an assumed path in which economic development would naturally culminate in political liberalisation. The international community began to confront another possibility: economic growth could strengthen state capacity and make an existing system more stable.

2017–2019 — Strategic competition becomes the dominant frame

The years 2017 to 2019 marked a second, clearer turning point. US–China competition expanded from trade into technology, supply chains, security and alliances. China’s 2018 removal of presidential term limits also reinforced the perception among many external observers that its political direction was becoming more centralised. From this point, “strategic competitor” increasingly displaced “important trading partner” as the principal Western frame for interpreting China.

The data already reflected that shift. In Pew’s 2019 survey of 34 countries, views remained broadly divided — a median of 40% favourable and 41% unfavourable — but unfavourable views reached 85% in Japan and 67% in Canada. In Canada and the United States, negative views rose by 22 and 13 points respectively in a single year, their largest changes since Pew began asking the question in 2005. Pew’s 2019 survey demonstrates that this was no longer merely an abstract geopolitical judgement; it had entered public opinion.

2020–2023 — The pandemic deepens existing fractures and creates a low point

The period from 2020 to 2023 was the low point for China’s image in most advanced countries. The pandemic was not the sole cause. It concentrated and amplified earlier anxieties about institutions, security, technological competition and diplomatic friction. Disputes about transparency at the beginning of the outbreak, prolonged public-health restrictions, trade conflict and a more confrontational diplomatic style converted existing concerns into more widespread negative impressions.

Pew’s 2020 survey of 14 advanced economies found majorities in every public holding an unfavourable view of China. The figure in Australia was 81%, up 24 points from 2019; roughly three-quarters in the United Kingdom were negative; and several countries reached historic highs in unfavourable opinion. Pew’s 2020 report records the scale of that shift. By 2023, the median unfavourable view across 24 countries was still 67%, while the favourable median was only 28%. Pew’s 2023 survey shows that the end of the pandemic did not immediately remove the low point.

This conclusion, however, must be qualified. The surveys draw heavily on advanced economies and parts of Asia. China’s image has remained considerably stronger in Africa, Latin America and parts of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. A “global low point” did not mean that every region viewed China in the same way.

2024–2026 — Limited improvement, and above all a reassessment of relative position

From 2024, there were signs of improvement in China’s image, but it would be mistaken to call this a return to the atmosphere of the early 2000s. In Pew’s 2024 survey across 35 countries, the median favourable view of China was 35%, compared with 52% unfavourable. In its 2025 survey across 25 countries, the figures were 36% and 54%. The country samples differ, so these numbers should not be treated as a mechanically precise year-on-year comparison. Taken together, however, they show that China still faced distinctly negative assessments in many high-income countries. Both Pew’s 2024 survey and its 2025 survey retain this regional divide.

The shift in 2026 was more pronounced, but it was first of all a relative shift. In a survey of 42,151 people conducted from February to May 2026 across 36 countries and territories, Pew found that China was viewed more favourably than the United States in 25 of them. Pew explicitly concluded that this reversal was often driven by two movements at once: improving views of China and worsening views of the United States. Its full comparison of views of China and the US is particularly important on this point.

The decline in America’s image is not a minor background factor. It is a key variable in explaining this relative recovery. In the same survey, the median favourable view of the United States was 37%, against 57% unfavourable. In 15 of the 24 countries with comparable data, favourable views of the US had fallen significantly; in many longstanding allied countries, they were at or near Pew’s historical lows. Pew’s 2026 report on America’s international image also found that, in 19 of 22 countries with trend data, fewer people thought the US contributed to global peace and stability. The declines in Australia, Canada, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands were each at least 30 points.

The more accurate description, then, is not that China is once again universally liked. The international benchmark has changed. China’s manufacturing strength, technological capacity, infrastructure experience and long-standing economic ties with the Global South have produced some genuine improvement. But frictions between the US and its allies, uncertainty in US trade policy, domestic political polarisation and doubts about American stability and commitment to international rules have more rapidly weakened the United States’ former comparative advantage.

Canada illustrates the combined movement. In 2023, 57% of Canadians viewed the United States favourably while only 14% viewed China favourably. By 2026, the figures were 33% for the US and 44% for China. This was neither a unilateral Chinese image repair nor merely an American decline. It was a relative reversal produced by both movements, as Pew’s country trend discussion makes clear.

Conclusion — The question has shifted from what China has achieved to how it will use power

The deepest change over the past twenty-five years is not a simple movement from positive to negative views, followed by a return to positive views. It is a fundamental change in expectations about China’s future direction. In the early twenty-first century, many assumed that economic development would naturally bring greater political openness and deeper integration into the existing order. Today, more observers recognise that economic growth does not necessarily produce political liberalisation. It can also increase state capacity, institutional stability and external influence.

That helps explain why China’s image now differs so sharply across regions. For many Global South countries, the immediate questions concern trade, investment, infrastructure and development space. For North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and parts of Asia, security, institutions, technological standards, maritime order and alliances carry greater weight. China’s image therefore cannot return to the relatively simple early story of successful modernisation.

The central international question today is no longer only what China has achieved, but how it will use its growing comprehensive power. At the same time, whether the United States can maintain its own credibility, stability and commitment to international rules is the other half of the question shaping China’s relative position. Understanding how these two trajectories interact is closer to reality than simply declaring that China’s image is either rising or falling.