Poll: China Image Scores Better Than U.S.A.

Poll: China Image Scores Better Than U.S.

Polling Finds U.S. Image So Tattered Overseas That Communist-Ruled China Is More Popular

By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Jun 23, 2005 ?- The United States' popularity in many countries including longtime allies in Europe is lagging behind even communist China.

The image of the U.S. slipped sharply in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, and two years later has shown few signs of rebounding either in Western Europe or the Muslim world, an international poll found.

"The U.S. image has improved slightly, but is still broadly negative," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "It's amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China."

In Britain, which prides itself on its "special relationship" with Washington, almost two-thirds of Britons, 65 percent, saw China favorably, compared with 55 percent who held a positive view of the United States. In France, 58 percent had an upbeat view of China, compared with 43 percent who felt that way about the U.S. The results were nearly the same in Spain and the Netherlands, the Pew polling found.

The United States' favorability rating was lowest among three Muslim nations that are also U.S. allies Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan where only about one-fifth of those polled viewed the U.S. in a positive light. Only Indonesia and Poland viewed the U.S. more positively than China.

"Clearly, with or without this poll we know we have a public diplomacy challenge, and that challenge is not lessening by the day," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

He said the United States is trying to combat that image problem, citing the frequent travels of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was ending a six-day swing through the Middle East and Europe on Thursday.

The poll found suspicion and wariness of the United States in many countries where people question the war in Iraq and are growing leery of the U.S.-led war on terror.

"The Iraq war has left an enduring impression on the minds of people around the world in ways that make them very suspicious of U.S. intentions and makes the effort to win hearts and minds far more difficult," said Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Support for the U.S.-led war on terror has dipped in European countries like Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Spain, while it remains low in the Muslim countries surveyed, such as Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey.

"The position of the United States as the one surviving superpower is to be assertive in responding in a world of terrorism. But in the rest of the world, there is a great wariness about that," said John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The poll found a positive reaction in European countries to President Bush's campaign for more democracy in countries around the world. People in Muslim countries were wary of the U.S. campaign, but supportive of the idea of democracy in their own countries.

Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under President Clinton, said the poll results are troubling because leaders of democracies allied to the U.S. have to rally the public in their countries when supporting U.S. policies.

The polls were taken in various countries from late April to the end of May with samples of about 1,000 in most countries, with more interviews in India and China and slightly fewer than 1,000 in the European countries. The margin of sampling error ranged from 2 percentage points to 4 percentage points, depending on the sample size.