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Trust in global powersTrust in global powers
About the author
Ryan Neelam
Ryan Neelam was Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute. He led the flagship annual Lowy Institute Poll, was project director for the Global Diplomacy Index, and wrote about climate diplomacy and multilateral policy.
Despite political re-engagement between Australia and China over the past two years, public sentiment towards China remains very low. Only 17% of Australians say they trust China ‘somewhat’ or ‘a great deal’ to act responsibly in the world. This is steady from 2023 and a minor increase on 2022, when trust in China reached a record low (12%). However, it still stands in sharp contrast to just six years ago, when half (52%) of Australians trusted China.
On a list of eight countries, only Russia (8%) elicits less trust from Australians, a ranking it has held since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
For the fourth year in a row, Australians ranked Japan as the most trusted foreign country on the list (87%). France (81%) and the United Kingdom (80%) were the next most trusted countries, remaining in the top three.
In the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election, levels of trust in the United States dropped a further five points from 2023 to 56%, continuing a decline that now puts it at nine points below 2022 (65%), in the second year of the Biden presidency.
India (56%) and Indonesia (52%) remain largely steady in the middle of the group.
