Why the world trusts China more than America

THE West’s political crisis can be shrunk to one word: mistrust. Voters feel cynicism, prejudice and anger about their systems. But each represents a downstream of the loss of trust.

Less urgency is felt about the rest of the world’s plummeting faith in America. That China is now trusted more than the US in a large majority of countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center should ring alarms. Yet, America still acts as if it is the most admired place on earth.

Not all of the decline is because of US President Donald Trump. It is not only the US that has been going down; China has also been going up.

America’s recent reputational slide began in 2023, when Joe Biden was president. This coincides with his support for Israel’s devastating response to the Oct 7 Hamas massacre.

The US foreign-policy establishment pays little heed to the effect of Israel’s militarism on the world’s view of America, including in the rest of the West. But Israel is not the chief source of US unpopularity.

Not all about Trump

The comforting view, which is also the view of the comfortable, is that the world detests Trump’s values. That suggests that when a more admirable president is elected, America’s standing will improve.

This modestly reassuring take leaves out one big thing: Not everything is about values.

A majority of countries rank the US higher than China when it comes to freedom, yet nevertheless distrust it more. Mistrust is thus a synonym for incompetence.

Even in Trump’s America, the world knows that people are far freer than they are in China to express their views and practise their faith.

But are Americans governed more competently? Is America more stable than China? It is hard to say yes to either.

Take Trump’s on-again off-again Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

In addition to being America’s most unpopular war at home since polling began – more so than Iraq and Vietnam in spite of far fewer US casualties – it has alienated all of America’s friends and allies, including other Western populists.

They are now being insulted for not joining what many see as America’s most careless choice of war to date.

The conflict has also exposed the yawning gap between China’s approach to energy and that of America.

China’s big investments in all forms of power, from renewables to coal, contrast with America’s slant towards fossil fuels.

This is all on Trump. Not only has he scrapped Biden’s incentives for green energy, he is also paying companies to walk away from alternative energy projects.

Were it not for China’s big stockpile, global oil prices would have gone much higher in the past few months.

Instead of claiming that China helped rig America’s 2020 election, Trump might thank it for saving US consumers from paying US$6 every 4.5 litres at the pump.

Operation Epic Fury coincides with unignorable signs of global warming, especially in the north.

Countries such as India and Iran have become used to large spikes in summer mortality. Only now is Europe regretting the absence of air conditioning after its hottest June on record.

Global warming is shifting from elite preoccupation to mass consciousness.

The US is behaving as the baddie on this, doubling down on 20th-century habits. China, on the other hand, is perceived in the Global South as the bearer of solutions.

Technological advancement cannot save reputation

Even in areas in which the US is cutting-edge, such as with Elon Musk’s Tesla, its reputation is atrocious.

Few could forget the recent activist advertisement in London that showed his Cybertruck, or “Swasticar”. On it were the words: “Goes from zero to 1939 in three seconds.”

Trust can vanish quickly, but it takes ages to rebuild. Four of the six countries that still approve more of America are in China’s neighbourhood: Japan, South Korea, India and the Philippines.

But the countries that distrust the US more are near and far, not just its insecure neighbours, Canada and Mexico.

This is in spite of the fact that China’s export machine threatens to eat everyone’s lunch. The outliers are Poland, chiefly because Russia is next door, and Israel. Even Australia and the UK trust China more than America.

Trump’s exit would surely help. America’s global standing rose sharply from George W Bush to Barack Obama.

But Obama did not recapture the reputational heights America had enjoyed in the 1990s. It will be even harder for Trump’s successor to set the clock back to Obama’s era.

US-China competition is increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence.

China’s models are mostly cheap and open source, even if their capabilities are often lower. America’s models are pricey and closed.

For the first time in generations, US technology is not assured of domination. It cannot even bank on admiration. FINANCIAL TIMES