Pew Research Center reports that people in 25 of 36 surveyed countries now hold a more favorable view of China than of the United States, a finding published July 15, 2026, as part of a cross-national polling project spanning 36 to 37 nations. The companion reports, "People in Many Countries Now View China More Positively Than the U.S." and "Views of China and Xi Are Improving Globally," document a shift that has been building since at least 2023.

Across 37 countries surveyed, a median of 51% express a favorable opinion of China, compared with a median of 39% unfavorable. Favorable opinions of China have broadly risen across countries since 2023, while U.S. favorability has declined over the same period, according to the Pew survey.

The United States retains one enduring advantage: respondents still rate the U.S. ahead of China on government respect for personal freedoms, though that gap is narrowing, Pew found. The survey does not report that China has overtaken the U.S. on this metric, only that the distance between the two is contracting.

The declining U.S. numbers track with a separate Pew report published June 23, 2026, titled "Trump Gets Negative Reviews Internationally as Fewer Say U.S. Is a Reliable Partner," based on the same 36-country survey architecture. That report found international assessments of the U.S. presidency and American reliability worsening, providing a domestic-political variable that correlates with the broader erosion in U.S. favorability.

Inside the United States itself, the trajectory is moving in the opposite direction, though from a low base. As of 2026, 27% of Americans hold a positive opinion of China, up 6 percentage points from the prior year and nearly double the level recorded in 2023, according to Pew. That figure remains well below a majority, and the April 2026 short read preceded the broader July release by three months.

The geographical scope is wide: the 36-country core survey covers nations across multiple regions, and the 37-country China-specific dataset adds one additional country. The methodological consistency across both reports allows direct comparison of China and U.S. favorability trends within the same polling infrastructure.

What the data does not do is isolate causation. The simultaneous rise in China's favorability and decline in U.S. favorability since 2023 could reflect independent dynamics, mutually reinforcing ones, or respondent reassessment of both powers in relation to each other. Pew's reports present the aggregate numbers; they do not test a single causal model.

The narrowing gap on the personal-freedoms metric is worth particular attention. If respondents continue to rate the U.S. higher on civil liberties but lower on overall favorability, the implication is that voters in many countries are weighting other factors, economic or strategic, more heavily than rights-based assessments when forming their general view of each nation. That would complicate any assumption that democratic governance remains a decisive variable in global public opinion of states.

The 25-of-36 figure is also a snapshot, not a trend line. Pew documents directional movement since 2023, but the cross-over point, where China's favorability exceeded that of the U.S. in a majority of surveyed countries, is not precisely dated in the available reporting. What is clear is that the shift occurred within a three-year window and is documented as of mid-2026.

For governments and institutions that rely on public diplomacy, the survey raises a structural question. Favorability ratings are a lagging indicator of soft-power efficacy, and a leading indicator of how much diplomatic latitude a government enjoys in a given country. A 51% median favorable rating for China, set against a declining U.S. trajectory, alters the informational environment in which bilateral negotiations, trade agreements, and security arrangements are conducted. It does not determine outcomes, but it changes the cost-benefit calculus for third-country leaders deciding how closely to align with Washington or Beijing.