"Views of China across the Global South: The Rule and the Exceptions" - by CWP Andrew Chubb

From the colonial “scramble for Africa” to Cold War coups and proxy conflicts backed by the United States and Soviet Union, the developing world was frequently an arena for competition among rival great powers in the 20th century. In today’s world of geopolitical flux, however, many countries in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America hold greater agency, increased state capacity, growing populations, and generally positive economic prospects. In a context of sharpening geopolitical divides, the societies of the Global South are likely to significantly influence the outcome of the current strategic competition. The emerging views regarding China in the Global South are relevant to understanding many countries’ foreign policies, investment regimes, trade policies, soft power initiatives, and approaches to educational or cultural exchanges.

It is not news that China is more popular in the Global South than in the West. But contrary to common assumptions — and previous research — Global Public Opinion on China’s (GPOC’s) data show the world is by no means neatly divided along North-South lines. As the previous paper in this series noted, on a population basis, the negative-leaning views of India’s 1.4 billion people offset the strongly positive views that prevail in more than 50 countries in Africa. Which regions and countries drive the overall positive view of China, and which cut against the general tendency? What have been the trends over time? How has the COVID pandemic’s legacy played out in the developing world? This GPOC brief offers a closer look at the significant variations in views of China across the Global South.

Center for China Analysis, Asia Society - Published - 13/11/2025

Andrew Chubb is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion. A graduate of the University of Western Australia, his work examines the linkages between Chinese domestic politics and international relations. More broadly, Andrew's interests include maritime and territorial disputes, strategic communication, political propaganda, and Chinese Communist Party history. Andrew is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy (Naval War College Press, 2021) and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia (Routledge and Royal United Services Institute, 2021).

Photo Credit: https://research.lancaster-university.uk/en/persons/andrew-chubb/

Economic classification of the world's countries and territories by the UNCTAD in 2023: the Global North (i.e., developed countries) is highlighted in blue and the Global South (i.e., developing countries and least developed countries) is highlighted in red.^[1][2][3]
By Specialgst - Blank map: mapchart.netUNCTADstat - Classifications. UN Trade and Development.Classifications - UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2023. unctad.org., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139254470