Several countries also expected their relations with China to strengthen over the next five years, including majorities in South Africa and Brazil.

The survey also found that Europeans’ confidence in US leadership has fallen sharply, with many increasingly feeling that Western dominance was receding and the EU was not strong enough to deal with the US or China.

“China’s rise is seen as something that suits people living in most non-Western countries. Life without a hegemon is how most people appear to imagine the post-American world,” the think tank said.

According to the survey’s findings, the rise of China did not necessarily equate with the decline of the United States, with many respondents believing the US would remain influential.

Only Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey had majorities in thinking the US would have more global power in the next decade. Just 43 per cent of the US itself thought this, and in Russia it was as low as 20 per cent.

The data was collected in November 2025, before the United States’ abduction of the former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife in January.

“Even before Trump’s dramatic intervention in Venezuela, his aggressive ‘America first’ approach was driving people closer to China,” according to the report.

The survey was carried out with Oxford University’s Europe in a Changing World research project and is the fourth in a series of global studies.

The findings showed the world appeared to be becoming more open to China, “or at least not fear it, an evolution that is in keeping with dominant Chinese interpretations of global geopolitics”, it said.