Transcription
We are all living at a time when profound changes are happening in global politics. The biggest shift is the decline in US global dominance. The 1990s and the 2000s were known as the unipolar moment. The United States was the lone global superpower, and the US had the power to try to impose its will on most countries all across the planet. That ship has long since sailed.
And today I'm going to be looking at a study that was conducted by a European organization that is funded by the European Union. They interviewed tens of thousands of people in 84 countries, and they found that global perceptions of the US have massively changed in the past few years. And now a majority of people in countries all around the world see the United States as the greatest threat to the world. And as I'll discuss further in a moment here, a majority of countries prefer China over the US. So this is empirical evidence demonstrating how there is a massive shift happening in global politics. And as the power of the US empire declines, and as it wages war against more and more countries, against Iran and Venezuela, threatening Cuba and other countries, this is leading to a significant shift in global public opinion. And China is becoming more popular while the US is less and less popular.
So, let's talk about the study that I'm going to be reviewing today. It's called the Democracy Perception Index for the year 2026. This is an annual survey of dozens of countries around the world. And this is done by a western organization called the Alliance of Democracies. This is led by the former chief of NATO, the US-led Western military alliance, Andres Fog Rasmusen, who was also the prime minister of Denmark. And the Alliance of Democracies discloses on its website that it's funded by Western governments and major corporations, including the European Endowment for Democracy, which is an arm of EU soft power, the European Partnership for Democracy, Freedom House, which is backed by the US government, major US corporations like Microsoft and Palunteer, which works very closely with the US military. Even Taiwan funds this organization.
So the reason that I mentioned all of that is that I want to emphasize that this report is done by a pro-western organization backed by Western governments. This is not so-called Chinese propaganda. Because when I look at the results of the survey, people are going to accuse me of supposedly spreading Chinese propaganda, ignoring the fact that this source is backed by Western governments and major US corporations. However, the results of the study speak for themselves.
One of the most interesting parts asked 24,000 people in 84 countries, which country do you think poses the greatest threat to the world? And the majority of people in countries all around the world said the United States, including in the US itself, which is very accurate. Americans recognize that the US is the biggest threat to the world. And in pretty much all of North America and Latin America, Eurasia, and most of Africa, people recognize that the US is the greatest threat to the world. People in a few countries in Europe said that Russia is the greatest threat. That's because of the proxy war in Ukraine. And then a few countries in West Asia and North Africa said Israel is the greatest threat. But the majority of respondents in 65 out of the 84 countries that were surveyed said the US is the greatest threat to the world. People in 10 countries said Russia is the biggest threat. In seven countries they said Israel, and then there were two other countries. The majority of people in Israel said that Iran is the greatest threat, and the majority of people in Japan said that China is the greatest threat.
And another very instructive part of this report shows how US military bases are very unpopular all around the world. The US has more than 700 military bases and installations all across the planet. And yet this survey found that those bases are extremely unpopular. So out of the 97 countries that were surveyed on this particular question, only four countries had a plurality of people saying that they do support US military bases. Those are Poland, Israel, South Korea, and Puerto Rico. I also appreciate that this report refers to Puerto Rico as a country. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, of the US Empire, and there are many people in Puerto Rico who prefer independence and oppose US colonialism. Although, there are also people who are culturally and mentally colonized and support the US Empire. But anyway, getting back to the survey, the point is is that the majority of people in 86 countries say they oppose the US having military bases in their homeland.
Similarly, the study gauged the perception of the US in countries around the world, and it found that the vast majority of countries have a negative perception of the US, including pretty much all of Eurasia, most of Europe, many parts of Africa, and North America itself. It's only in a few countries in Latin America where a majority of people have a positive view of the US. And even then, I'm quite skeptical of some of the people, for instance, who were being interviewed in Venezuela. These are probably pro-western English-speaking Venezuelans. They don't represent working-class Venezuelans in the barrios. But regardless, if you look at the map, the results speak for themselves. The United States is extremely unpopular all around the world.
Meanwhile, while US global influence is declining rapidly and the US is rightfully seen as a threat and it's unpopular because the US is constantly waging war and threatening foreign countries, at the same time, global public opinion of China is improving. And this same study that again was done by a western organization funded by the EU and led by the former chief of NATO. This survey found that people in a majority of countries on Earth prefer China over the US. If they had to pick either China or the US, 63 out of the 83 surveyed countries say they viewed China more positively. This includes pretty much all of Eurasia, including, by the way, most of Southeast Asia, as well as West Asia, all of Africa that was surveyed, most of Europe, and most of the Western Hemisphere, including North America and most of Latin America.
What's very interesting is to look at the regional perceptions of China versus the US. If you look at, for instance, the Middle East and North Africa or West Asia and North Africa, you see that China leads over the US by 53 points. China is so much more popular, which of course makes sense because the US is constantly at war in the region. In sub-Saharan Africa, China is 30 percentage points more popular than the US. In Europe, China is 20 percentage points more popular. In the Asia-Pacific region, China is 17 points ahead. And in the Americas, China is eight points ahead.
Now, what's also interesting about this survey is it asked people about specific geopolitical conflicts in wars that are going on. And this survey was conducted in March and April of 2026, by the way. So, one of the wars that people were asked about was the US war against Iran. And the survey found that most people in countries around the world prefer Iran. They back Iran against the US. What's striking is in this part of the report, you start seeing the geopolitical divisions between the West and the rest of the world. So in the West, in North America, most of Europe, and some parts of Latin America, a majority of people prefer the US over Iran. Although there are exceptions like Mexico, for instance, prefers Iran. But when you look at Eurasia and Africa, you see that people in a majority of countries are siding with Iran against the US.
You see the same trend with Israel-Palestine. The majority of Eurasia and Africa supports Palestine, and even in Europe, increasingly there is growing support for Palestine, although Ukraine is still very pro-Israel. And then you look at the Western Hemisphere, and it's only the US and a few Latin American countries where a slight majority of people support Israel. Although again, it's only a very slight majority, which demonstrates how Israel's global support has completely collapsed.
Once again, we see a similar trend in the proxy war in Ukraine. Now, this is an organization that's funded by the European Union. So, of course, they portray this simply as a war between Russia and Ukraine. In reality, it's a war between Russia and NATO. But regardless, if you look at the map of global public opinion, you can see that a majority of people in Eurasia and Africa side with Russia, whereas the majority of people in Europe, North America, and also surprisingly in much of Latin America side with Ukraine.
On the question of Taiwan, you see the exact same results. Now, this is a bit misleading because obviously Ukraine is a country. It's not a territory of Russia, but according to international law, Taiwan is a province of China. The United Nations recognizes the one China principle. Almost all countries on Earth recognize the one China principle. Even the US-dominated International Monetary Fund based in Washington, the IMF refers to Taiwan as a province of China. But regardless, this study asked people if they prefer the Chinese mainland or Taiwan. And you see similar results in Eurasia, excluding India, South Korea, and Japan, which of course are Western allies. The majority of the other countries in the region prefer the Chinese mainland. And pretty much all of Africa sides with the Chinese mainland. Whereas once again, you see the West is united in supporting Taiwan.
However, there is one geopolitical issue that pretty much the entire world agrees on, which is Greenland. Donald Trump has vowed to colonize Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, and Greenland has a majority indigenous population, and they want to be independent. They certainly do not want to be a US colony. And the majority of people in basically all of the countries surveyed said that they support Greenland against US imperialism. So this is one issue that pretty much unites everyone, including Europe. Europeans are of course very angry about this because it's impacting them.
So that was the part of the report in which people were asked about geopolitical issues. I want to look at the other part of this survey which asks people about their views of their home countries. And one of the most interesting parts of this report was the question, is your country heading in the right direction? And you can see that a majority of people in most countries say their country is heading in the wrong direction. That includes most people in Europe, in North America, in Latin America, in parts of Africa, and in much of Southeast Asia and Australia. However, what's interesting is there are a few exceptions. So, the country that had the highest rating of people saying their country is heading in the right direction was China. It was more than any other country. What's also interesting is there were only two countries in Latin America where people said that their country is heading in the right direction. That was El Salvador and Nicaragua, which is governed by the Sandinista front, which has a revolutionary government. Other honorable mentions include Vietnam, where a lot of people say they're moving in the right direction, and surprisingly, some people in North Africa, including Algeria. A lot of people in Algeria say that their country is moving in the right direction.
And then this brings us to what is perhaps the most controversial part of this report. And this is why earlier I emphasized that this is an organization funded by the European Union, led by the former chief of NATO. They cannot be accused of being pro-China because this report is called the Democracy Perception Index. And the main thing that it studies, in addition to those geopolitical issues, the core of this survey is about perceptions of democracy around the world. And this survey found that the majority of people in most countries say democracy is important, and that includes, by the way, China.
However, what's unique about this study is it asks people to define what exactly they mean by democracy. And this is what I like about this report because the western perception of democracy, or more specifically the Anglo-American, the North American understanding of democracy as liberal capitalist democracy based on individual rights where billionaires can buy elections and big corporations control everything and there's no regulation and no limitations on what rich oligarchs can do. That understanding of democracy is not shared by most people around the world. In fact, what you find is that people in most countries say that they consider democracy to be a government that acts on behalf of the people in order to improve the people's living standards and well-being. That was the most popular response, representing the majority of countries on Earth. The second most popular response was that democracy is a form of government that promotes a fair and peaceful society. The third most popular was that democracy is a system of government where people can freely choose their government. And then the least popular understanding of democracy was that it's a system that protects individual rights and freedoms. That liberal capitalist individualist understanding of democracy is the least popular, and yet that's the view that is shared by the United States, Canada, and a few European countries along with South Korea. But again, that very narrow understanding of democracy is not popular.
What you can see from this survey is that a majority of people in countries in Latin America, Africa, and Eurasia say that democracy is about a system of government in which the authorities are dedicated to improving people's living standards and well-being. And then you can see that in China, in some European countries, and in parts of North Africa, people say that democracy is about promoting a fair and peaceful society. So when you have this more nuanced understanding of democracy, you can now see why a majority of people in countries like China say that they do consider their system to be democratic. Even though they don't have direct elections held by the people, they have internal elections inside the Communist Party, and pretty much anyone can join the Communist Party. It's a meritocracy, and you have to work up the ranks, and there's democracy inside the party. But obviously, people in China don't go to the voting booth to vote for a billionaire oligarch who will supposedly represent them when in reality, the US president or the Canadian leader or many European leaders, they're just bankers and multi-millionaires and billionaires and corporate oligarchs, and they represent the interests of other wealthy oligarchs and capitalists like them. They don't represent the interests of the people, but that's what they call democracy.
Anyway, getting back to this survey, this is why when you have a more nuanced understanding of democracy, you can see why so many people see their system as democratic. And ironically, it's many Western countries where people do not consider their system to be democratic, including in the United States itself, which is supposedly the beacon of democracy, we're told by US propaganda. In fact, people do not consider their system to be democratic and representative. And it makes perfect sense why people feel this way in much of the West because their systems are not actual democracies. They're oligarchies. And this has been demonstrated empirically, by the way, in peer-reviewed academic studies in leading journals, including a famous study that was published in 2014, well before Donald Trump became president. This is not all about Trump. And this 2014 study showed empirically that the US is not a democracy because people have no influence on policies. Policies are designed by large corporations and wealthy oligarchs and big capitalists. Again, the US is not a democracy. It's an oligarchy in which the elections are bought and sold.
The watchdog organization in the US, Open Secrets, looks at the influence of money in politics and it has consistently found over decades that over 80% of the candidates in the Senate and over 90% of the candidates for seats in the House of Representatives who have more funding, more campaign contributions win the election. So in other words, if you get money from big corporations, from the fossil fuel industry, from the military-industrial complex, from Wall Street, from Silicon Valley, you can buy an election. It's quite easy. But if you go against the interests of those large corporations and billionaire oligarchs and big capitalists, you're going to lose the election in the majority of cases. There are a small handful of exceptions, but those exceptions ignore the data which shows that money buys seats in US Congress. And then if you're even able to get into Congress, you have the lobbyists. Open Secrets found that every single year, lobbyists spend billions of dollars, including in 2025, lobbyists spent $5 billion creating policies in Washington. And there are more than 13,000 lobbyists who are officially registered with the government. And these are the official data. These statistics are the official government statistics. The actual number is probably higher considering the number of people who are not registered lobbyists but who are still lobbying in Washington and in other capitals because lobbying doesn't just happen in Washington DC. It happens in every US state. And by the way, for people wondering why the figures for 2026 on this chart are so much lower than in previous years, it's because I'm recording this in May 2026, and the data for the year is not available. But by 2027, you will likely see a continued trend. Every year, lobbyists spend more and more money in Washington creating policy on behalf of large corporations.
This western idea of liberal capitalist democracy being the end of history, that every country is simply going to copy the West. That idea used to be popular in the '90s and 2000s. But increasingly, as we see the nightmare happening in the US politically and economically with extreme inequality, with a totally corrupt, dysfunctional government waging war all around the world, it's becoming obvious why this idea is very superficial and why people in many other countries have a different view. And this is precisely why the majority of people in most countries on Earth see China more positively than they see the US. They would prefer China over the US. And this is why people in the majority of countries see the United States as the biggest threat to the world. And again, you don't have to believe me. It's not just my opinion. This is what the data very clearly demonstrates.
On that note, I'm going to conclude. I am Ben Norton. I'm the editor-in-chief of Geopolitical Economy Report. I want to thank everyone for joining me today. Please like and subscribe. Please share this. I will see you all next time.