- The Guardian
- Issue #2199
Xi Jinping delivers a report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on behalf of the 19th CPC Central Committee in Beijing, 2022. Photo: Xinhua
For decades, Washington has been able to console itself with the notion that, whatever the world thought of its never-ending criminal wars, it could always rely on its vast apparatus of cultural hegemony to win hearts and minds around the world. At some level, it has always remained the land of the free and the home of the brave. But nothing lasts forever.
According to a new Pew Research Center survey of 42,151 people across 36 countries, China is now viewed more positively than the United States in most of the countries surveyed – and more people worldwide express confidence in Xi Jinping than in Donald Trump.
Even Canadians view China more favourably. In 2023, 57 per cent of Canadians had a positive view of the US and just 14 per cent viewed China positively; today China leads by 44 per cent to 33.
In 17 middle-income countries, a median of 75 per cent say the US interferes in the affairs of other countries, against 45 per cent for China. In South Africa, 72 per cent call China a reliable partner, compared with 46 per cent for the US; in Pakistan the figures are 84 and 36.
Even on “personal freedoms” – over which the West considers itself to have a monopoly – the share saying the US government respects the freedoms of its own people has collapsed, falling in Sweden from 61 per cent in 2021 to 27 per cent today, with drops of 25 points or more in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
GAZA: THE MASK DROPPED
There are several factors undermining global confidence in the West, but the most important is the war on Gaza. A generation has watched a genocide unfold on its phones, in real time, for more than two years: the flattened hospitals, the famine as policy, the mass graves, the torture of prisoners, the deaths of tens of thousands of children. And it has watched the governments of North America and Western Europe arm, finance and provide diplomatic cover for this genocide – vetoing ceasefire resolutions, keeping the weapons flowing, and shielding Israel from accountability at every international forum, all while lecturing humanity about the “rules-based international order.”
China, by contrast, called for a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from the first days of the onslaught. It brought 14 Palestinian factions to Beijing to work for reconciliation, and affirmed at the International Court of Justice the Palestinian people’s right under international law to resist occupation. China stood with the UN Charter and the most fundamental principles of justice; Washington stood with mass murder, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The world noticed.
