Thread by @balajis

Who’s trusted more, the US or China?

Edelman reports the US is trusted more globally than China, but not by much: 40% to 30%.

Internally, the Chinese report much higher levels of trust in their own government than Americans — but may not have a choice (some questions censored!)

This follows up an earlier tweet. I dug into the (surprising) study after comments from @Noahpinion @Molson_Hart @sprague.

I’d thought China might be more popular among poor countries, and that was shifting the result, but it looks like the figure was just labeled oddly.

Right before the pandemic, Pew reported that poorer countries tended to tilt in the direction of China and wealthier countries in the direction of the US. pewresearch.org/global/2019/12…

The Oct20 Pew study found that US allies tend to trust US more & China less…but not *that* much more, except for RoK & Japan, who need the US military.

Even allies said China was the leading economic power & the US didn’t handle COVID well (pre-vaccine!) pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020…

My general mental model is:

- Americans may think the US is more trusted globally than it is
- China is less popular in wealthier countries, more popular in poorer ones
- The EU won’t reflexively side with the US vs China
- Attempted US sanctions on Germany and India don’t help