At the event, a think-tank report by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University was released, titled "The Great Shift in Global Perception: Long-Term Trends in How the World Sees China Toward 2050." Drawing on survey data from the Pew Research Center and Gallup as well as long-term trends in China's development, the report analyzed changing global perceptions of the country. It finds that since the end of the Cold War, global perception of China has been undergoing its most profound framework-level reconstruction, with the coordinate system through which the international community observes China shifting fundamentally. By 2050, the report projects, China will become one of the major economies most admired by people around the world.
The report shows this perceptual change is visible first in spatial terms. Among the 36 countries and regions surveyed, people in 27 hold a more favorable view of China than of the United States, with China's median favorability at 46% against America's 36%. Fully 69% of overseas respondents view China favorably, and the share is even higher in the Middle East, ASEAN, BRICS countries and Africa. This suggests global perception of China is moving beyond a single, blanket impression, with each country increasingly forming independent judgments based on its own development needs and practical interests.
In addition, a generational shift among those forming these perceptions constitutes another major change. Globally, people aged 18 to 34 hold markedly more favorable views of China than those over 50, especially in Latin America. In Europe, 82% of young people view China positively. With the growth of digital platforms, travel, study abroad and business exchanges, overseas young people's understanding of China is gradually shifting from secondhand narratives to firsthand perception, and the information gap between the real China and the perceived China keeps narrowing.
