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Trust in global powersTrust in global powers
About the author
Natasha Kassam
Natasha Kassam was Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program from 2019 to 2022, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations.
As various countries around the world have coped with the pandemic in different ways, Australians appear confident in their own country as one of the safest, most prosperous and trustworthy. For the first time, the Lowy Institute asked Australians in 2021 about their level of trust in Australia to act responsibly in the world. Australians give their country top marks, with almost all (92%) Australians saying they trust Australia ‘a great deal’ or ‘somewhat’ to act responsibly in the world.
Despite large disparities in response to the pandemic abroad, the majority of Australian adults trust Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and India. Conversely, Australians’ trust in China has continued its steep decline in 2021.
Australians reserve their highest levels of trust for other liberal democracies across the world. An overwhelming majority of Australians say they trust Japan (87%, up 5 points) and the United Kingdom (also 87%) to act responsibly in the world.
Trust in the United States has rebounded in 2021, but there remains a gulf between Australian views of the United Kingdom and Japan, and trust in the United States. Six in ten Australians (61%) say they trust the United States, an increase of 10 points from last year. However, this level of trust remains 22 points lower than the high point for trust in the United States that was recorded during President Barack Obama’s administration.
There remains a significant generational divide between Australians on the issue of trust in the United States. Only 40% of Australians aged 18–29 trust the United States, compared with 66% of Australians aged over 30.
Most Australians trust the liberal democracies of Japan and the United Kingdom
In a remarkable shift since 2020, Australians’ trust in India is on par with trust in the United States. Six in ten Australians (61%) say they trust India a great deal or somewhat, an increase of 16 points since 2020. The fieldwork for the Lowy Institute Poll (15–29 March 2021) took place prior to the resurgence of Covid-19 in India in April 2021.
Past polling has shown that Australians tend to be divided when it comes to our largest neighbour, Indonesia. In 2021, there has been a notable lift in trust, with almost half (48%) say they trust Indonesia, an increase of 12 points in the past year. Only 26% of Australians say they trust Russia, steady from 2020.
For the second year in a row, China is the least-trusted country on the list for Australians. Only 16% of Australians say that they trust China a great deal or somewhat to act responsibly in the world, a 7-point decline from 2020. The number of Australians holding positive views of China’s trustworthiness has plummeted in three years, halving since 2019 and now at a third of the level in 2018 when a majority of Australians (52%) said they trusted China.
