By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

China’s Cautious Response to America’s Retreat

Since the start of his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has been dismantling the traditional channels of American soft power. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is no longer operational, and the Voice of America is entangled in legislative and court battles. The State Department has significantly reduced its staff and programming. Restrictive new visa and immigration policies have made the United States less accessible and less attractive to potential visitors, and Washington’s coercive and transactional dealings with U.S. allies have damaged trust abroad. In The New York Times, Jamie Shea, a former NATO official, referred to these sweeping changes as the United States’ “soft power suicide.”

Many experts and commentators have interpreted the United States’ loss as China’s gain. The late political scientist Joseph Nye, who developed the concept of soft power, cautioned earlier this year that China “stands ready to fill the vacuum that Trump is creating.” Yanzhong Huang, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, similarly contended that the Trump administration’s actions have “boosted China’s charm offensive.”

But the U.S.-Chinese soft-power competition is not a zero-sum quest for influence. The two countries take distinct approaches to building soft power: China tends to rely on offering pragmatic benefits to draw in other countries, whereas the United States places ideals and values at the center of its outreach. Recipient countries, especially those in the so-called global South, have perceived Chinese and U.S. offerings as complementary, accepting both rather than seeing a need to choose one over the other.

Over the last three years, and especially since Trump’s reelection, China’s relative position has undoubtedly improved. As the United States retreats, China looks to the world like the more accessible and reliable partner. But this has not turned China into a global leader in soft power. Although Beijing still emphasizes its pragmatic offerings in its diplomacy, it has reduced, rather than expanded, its international assistance to lower-income countries, and has shown few signs of stepping in to replace USAID. Nor is China positioning itself to fill the United States’ former role of promoting a particular governance model to the world. Beijing is generally looked upon more favorably than before, yet that change in attitude varies significantly from region to region, and even the countries that hold the most positive views of China view its actions with a mix of appreciation and resentment. China may be passively gaining stature from the United States’ soft-power retreat, but that is not enough to guarantee greater global influence in the years ahead.

Holding a Chinese flag in Rome, May 2025

 

Staying the Course

Chinese interpretations of soft power differ from Nye’s original definition, which emphasizes culture, values, and foreign policy as the key ingredients of a country’s ability to influence others without coercion. In Chinese writings, cultural power is fused together with material power: Beijing considers its economic development model, technological innovation, and material assistance to developing countries, not just its traditional culture and principles, to be vectors of soft power.

When Chinese leaders try to appeal to developing countries, they consistently underscore China’s pursuit of mutual economic benefit and its understanding of human rights as a concept rooted in economic rights and material well-being, rather than in individual and political freedom. Diplomacy is about offering something practical to other countries, whether that is trade deals (which are often announced with some kind of cultural spectacle), infrastructure projects, or training and educational programs that bring thousands of officials, policymakers, journalists, and students to China.

And with the arrival of the Trump administration, developing countries have few alternatives to what China is offering. According to the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Australia, the administration’s cuts to USAID have made China’s bilateral development assistance commitments the largest in the world. Steep U.S. tariffs have ensured that China, which still embraces trade (even if it is criticized for its unfair practices), is the more economically accessible of the two countries. China’s openness to international visitors—it now allows 30-day visa-free entry to citizens of more than 70 countries—also sharply contrasts with the increasingly restrictive United States.

Yet China does not appear to be ramping up its developmental assistance, even though Trump’s policies provide it an opportunity. Beijing’s recent pledges of lending assistance to developing countries have been smaller than in the past, and there is little sign so far of that trend changing. At a May summit between China and the 33-country Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, for instance, Beijing promised members of the bloc $9.2 billion in credit, less than half of what it pledged at the same summit in 2015. In September, China pledged $1.4 billion in loans to the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a ten-country economic and security association, down from the $5 billion it pledged in 2014. These reductions reflect Beijing’s effort to “revise” its Belt and Road Initiative by focusing on “small and beautiful” projects, downsizing, in effect, which is likely a response to both China’s domestic economic pressures and the soaring debt that many BRI countries have accumulated. Although China is still offering loans to many neighboring, resource-rich countries, as well as to higher-income countries, such as the United States and Russia, it is increasingly wary of over-lending to developing countries. In some cases, such as in Ethiopia, it has paused new loans entirely.

There are a few signs that China aims to fill other gaps left by USAID, either. Before 2025, China’s foreign-aid budget (separate from its development finance funds) was a fraction of the United States’ pre-2025 budget, and much of it was disbursed as concessional loans, rather than grants. This year, only in a handful of cases—such as increasing its contributions to Cambodia’s largest demining organization and offering informal assurances that it will provide humanitarian aid to Nepal- has Beijing jumped in to meet the needs of countries affected by the USAID cuts. These isolated examples do not add up to a wholesale reorientation of Chinese diplomacy.

China is not holding back economically across the board. In recent years, Chinese trade with and private investment in countries across Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia have increased. The primary drivers of this expansion, however, have been commercial actors, rather than the state (although the lines between the two can be blurry).

 

The China Model?

The United States has also reduced its promotion of democratic values and human rights abroad, no longer taking pains to position itself as an aspirational democracy. This leaves another vacuum that China could, in theory, fill with an ideological agenda of its own—but Beijing may not be willing or able to do so. China’s approach to soft power has generally focused less on the promotion of political ideals and values than that of the United States. This may be slowly changing, particularly as Chinese officials talk about principles such as noninterference and promote an alternative path to modernization and democracy in summit diplomacy and in the training sessions they run for foreign-policy makers. But China’s messaging does not offer, as the United States’ messaging once did, a clear vision of the country’s role in the global order, nor a coherent model to “export.” This may be intentional, as it gives China flexibility and helps it present itself as a less imposing global power than the United States has been.

A main theme of Beijing’s ideological promotion today is to differentiate China from the West. In speeches and public commentaries, Chinese officials often denounce Western hegemony and portray China as a responsible and stable major power. In a comment in Russian media in July, for example, China’s ambassador to Russia criticized the United States for abandoning the postwar global order and described China, by comparison, as a country able to keep its promises. In September, at the SCO summit in Tianjin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a “fairer” world order, and launched the Global Governance Initiative to demonstrate his commitment to advancing the goal of multipolarity.

In discussions with African leaders and policymakers, Chinese academics and diplomats tend to contrast the nonintrusive, benevolent China with the more interventionist and impulsive United States. China’s approach to modernization, for example, is presented as inclusive of national differences rather than dictating a set of Western rules. Highlighting the unfairness of U.S. policies, both real and perceived, can foster grievance-based unity that can bring some countries closer to China. The Chinese-led SCO, for instance, has expanded its agenda from border security to global diplomacy, and has grown from a group of six countries in 2001 to one with ten full members, 14 dialogue partners, and two observers today, with more countries waiting to join. Yet China’s messaging does not go much further than criticizing the dominance of the United States and demanding more say in international institutions and governance mechanisms. It falls short of delineating and inspiring an alternative world order.

Labubu dolls in London, November 2025

 

Relative Gains

Soft power is always challenging to measure definitively. One approximation is public opinion polls, which have shown China receives at least a passive boost in popularity since Trump’s reelection. A July Pew survey across 24 countries found that more people still view the United States favorably than they do China, but the gap is closing. The United States has suffered a large decline in positive perceptions since spring 2024; favorable views of the country dropped 20 percentage points in Canada, for instance, whereas China has made marginal gains. In another recent survey across five major Latin American countries, more people preferred China to the United States as an economic partner in every country polled.

But these positive signs come with caveats. Perceptions of China still vary significantly. Unlike in Africa and Latin America, where opinion toward China is generally favorable, China’s reputation is overwhelmingly negative in the Asia-Pacific and in Europe. In these regions, concern about the security threat Beijing poses likely outweighs attraction to the economic opportunities it has to offer, even as Washington pulls back.

Moreover, appreciation of China as an economic partner does not translate to trust in China’s global leadership. In the Pew survey in July, a median of 66 percent of respondents across 25 countries did not have confidence in Xi “to do the right thing regarding world affairs.” Such contrasting views of China on economic and ideological levels also come up in conversations with policymakers. Ethiopian officials who took part in diplomatic training programs in China told me that they admired China’s economic prowess and appreciated its material offerings, but they remained skeptical of Beijing’s promises of cooperation bringing mutual gain, asking, “Is it a win-win or a China win?” Many struggled to articulate China’s perspective on global affairs beyond a pursuit of self-interest.

Subtle resentments and fears of China’s economic power rarely get captured in surveys, but they do show up in other ways. Even in a country such as Ethiopia, which is more favorably disposed toward China, university students across the country have expressed to me a mix of approval and apprehension about the long-term implications of Belt and Road projects. Many invoked the high debt owed to China (Ethiopia is China’s second-largest loan recipient in Africa) and the possibility that China could end up taking over critical projects and sectors if Ethiopia can’t pay back its loans. In Central Asia, where many countries are also relatively pro-China, organized protests against Chinese infrastructure and energy projects, among other issues, have grown more common in the last decade. Among countries that prefer to hedge between major powers or to avoid alignment, the withdrawal of the United States generates even more unease, as it leaves China’s presence uncontested.

It would be premature to declare the relative improvement in China’s soft-power position a definitive victory for the country. For now, Beijing seems to be holding back rather than fully taking advantage of the United States’ decline. It presents itself as a reliable and accessible developmental partner, as it did before the second Trump administration, but it has also been cautious about expending more resources abroad. China’s ideological message still draws largely on resentment toward the West, rather than presenting a compelling alternate international vision or offering concrete, replicable policy lessons. Many foreign publics remain wary of China, especially when it comes to global leadership.

Yet Beijing’s conservative approach may be strategic, rather than a sign of weakness or disregard for soft power. China is avoiding overcommitment and opening itself up to greater scrutiny over its domestic politics and global vision while still enjoying passive gains from the U.S. withdrawal. Unlike the Washington of the past, Beijing is more interested in legitimizing its distinctive path than in convincing others to follow in its footsteps. Highlighting the stark contrasts between China and the United States may suffice for now.

 

 

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