Japan remains broadly negative on China as many countries in the rest of the world become more positive and overall start to see China more favorably than the United States, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.<\/p>\n
Japan also remains relatively supportive of U.S. President Donald Trump while Chinese President Xi Jinping gains popularity globally, and by some measures is starting to outpoll Trump.<\/p>\n
In the survey, more than 40,000 people in 36 countries were asked a series of questions about their views on China. A total of 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region were included.<\/p>\n
When asked whether they have a \u201cfavorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable opinion\u201d of China, 1% of the people surveyed in Japan said \u201cvery favorable\u201d and 11% said \u201csomewhat favorable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2002 in the same survey, 8% said \u201cvery favorable\u201d and 47% said \u201csomewhat favorable.\u201d The low was in 2020, when 0% said they had a \u201cvery favorable\u201d view of China and 9% said \u201csomewhat favorable.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Pew, Pakistan is most positive on China in 2026, with 66% responding \u201cvery favorable\u201d and 24% \u201csomewhat favorable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survey found that perceptions of China are improving globally, while the United States is being viewed more negatively. In 2026, the median percentage who have a favorable opinion of China was higher, at 46%, than the median percentage who have a favorable opinion of the United States, at 36%.<\/p>\n
These figures are based on data from 20 of the 36 countries.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the United States scored better.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina is now seen more positively than the U.S. in most of the 36 countries surveyed,\u201d Pew noted in the survey, which was released on Wednesday in Washington.<\/p>\n
It also found that Xi is in some ways outperforming Trump. The median percentage who have confidence in Xi doing the right thing regarding world affairs was 31% versus Trump\u2019s 21%.<\/p>\n
These figures are also based on data from 20 of the 36 countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile many people still lack confidence in Xi, positive views of him have become more widespread, and more overall now say they have confidence in Xi than in Trump,\u201d Pew said.<\/p>\n
Countries closer to China tend to have a better view of Trump.<\/p>\n
People surveyed in India, the Philippines and Japan had more confidence in the U.S. president than in Xi. In South Korea, Xi beat Trump by 3 percentage points in 2026, a flip from the previous survey, in which it was Trump at 33% and Xi at 15%.<\/p>\n
Territorial disputes with China remain a key issue in Japan. In 2026, 88% of those surveyed said they are concerned about these disputes \u2014 51% very concerned \u2014 up from 86% in 2024 and 80% in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan remains broadly negative on China as many countries in the rest of the world become more positive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,13,8,33,2787,84,2537],"class_list":["post-58745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-surveys","tag-u-s","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}