China beats US in battle for influence over developing countries: Cambridge poll

China for the first time has beaten the US in the ideological and political battle to win people's favour in developing countries, according to a recent poll by the Centre for the Future of Democracy of the University of Cambridge, UK.

With the declining trend of faith in the world's liberal democracies, the poll shows 62% of people in developing countries are now favourable towards China, while 61% see the US positively, Newsweek reported.

Although the one percentage point difference might not seem so significant, it goes to show that the world has become more polarized since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February this year.

"The world is torn between two opposing clusters: maritime alliance democracies, led by the United States; and a Eurasian bloc of illiberal or autocratic states, centred upon Russia and China," writes the Centre for the Future of Democracy in its report.

While Western democracies stand more firmly behind the US and have an overwhelmingly negative view of China and Russia, a great number of countries stretching between Eastern Europe, Asia and the west of Africa have moved closer to China and Russia in the last 10 years.

Data from the Centre for the Future of Democracy—obtained by merging 30 global survey projects that span a total of 137 countries representing 97% of the world population—shows that, among the 1.2 billion people living in the world's liberal democracies, 75% hold a negative view of China and 87% a negative view of Russia.

This same data is almost reversed in developing countries. Among the 6.3 billion people who live in the world's remaining 136 countries, 70% feel positively towards China and 66% towards Russia.

This divide, which has been in the making for the last 10 years as Russia and especially China expanded their influence in developing countries through investments and trade, has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Here is why Russia and China gaining support in developing countries

One of the reasons linked to the increased support in developing countries for authoritarian powers like China and Russia are perceived shortcomings of democracies in liberal countries.

A majority of the public is dissatisfied with democratic performance in seven out of 10 countries that are majority-favourable to Russia, according to the Centre for the Future of Democracy, while most feel positively towards China in three-quarters of countries that are majority-dissatisfied with how their democracy is performing.

But there are also economic reasons behind the support China enjoys in developing countries. In 2013, China launched the Belt and Road initiative, a massive project that has invested over $4 trillion into the 147 participating countries to build energy infrastructure and transportation projects.

Among the 4.6 billion people living in countries supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, almost two-thirds hold a positive view of China, compared to just 27% in non-participating countries that have not received Beijing's assistance.

On the other hand, China has gained approval in developing countries while losing significant support in developed nations. Five years ago, 42% of Western citizens looked at China positively, while now only 23% do.

The same is true about Russia: the number of Western citizens holding a positive view of Russia dropped from 39% to 12 in the past 10 years, plunging from 23 to 12% only since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.

The troubling factor to consider is that the Kremlin probably doesn't even care about losing support in Western democracies. "The real terrain of Russia's international influence lies outside of the West," writes the Centre for the Future of Democracy.

Some 75% of respondents in South Asia, 68% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia hold a positive opinion of Russia despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

One last reason why developing countries might have swayed from the US towards China and Russia are conflicting values: as the US and Western nations have embraced more progressive values in the last decade—regarding LGBTQ+ rights, individualism, and gender equality—other countries have stuck to their traditional, conservative values.

This new world's polarization clearly shows that the nations that feel closer to China and Russia are poorer, less stable, and more dependent upon their external support, while the liberal bloc rallying around the US has a significant advantage, accounting for the lion's share of global military spending, foreign aid, and cultural influence.