The Pew Research group recently conducted a massive, global poll to figure out who has "favorable" views of the U.S. and China. They put together a great visualization to show how many people in each region look favorably on the two superpowers. The U.S. is liked slightly more, except in the Middle East.


Below, you can see the full infographic. What's interesting is how close the two nations are in terms of global perception. Remember, this is just measuring how people responded to questions about whether they viewed the nations favorably — so the numbers add up to more than 100% because many people viewed both nations favorably.

What's interesting is how much these vague perceptions of "favorableness" can feed into what we anticipate will happen to both countries in the future. The more that people like China, the more willing they are to believe that it will become the world's leading superpower.


Read more about this study at the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project.