Kathmandu. It was never an easy task for China’s Communist government to project a good image of the regime in the international arena. Whatever little facelift was done by its economic and technological prowess has also been impaired by recent incidences of human rights repression in the country and the COVID-19.

According to a survey by Pew Research, a non-partisan American “fact-tank”, the world has negative perceptions of China, and that has been increasing. The survey was conducted between the months of June and August, among 14,276 adults in 14 countries

USA, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom.were among the nations where the survey was carried. Most of the countries blamed China for manhandling the COVID-19 pandemic. 61% of respondents said that Beijing had handled the viral outbreak with utter recklessness..

“The major finding is that unfavorable views of China are rising precipitately and this is tied to the fact that China has not done a good job handling the coronavirus,” said Laura Silver, senior researcher at Pew and co-author of the report.

China made quite an image after adopting the economic reform,‘opening of China’, under Deng Xiaoping. With advancement in technology and a meteoric economic achievement, China attracted the attention of the world. Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) led most of the developing countries to join hands with China, China also built trade partnerships with major economies of the world.

Things, however, have not been so rosy for China since the past two years. Beijing’s dealing of protests in Hong Kong and mass internment of Muslim-majority ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region sent negative messages around the world.

There are sparks of resentment and anger in its old allies’ eyes too. Where 64% of Australians surveyed in 2017 said they were positive about China, 81% have an unfavorable opinion of China now. Similarly 36 percent British citizens had negative view of China n 2018 which has become 74 percent in 2020.