Majority of Australians think China will be world's most powerful country by 2035, poll finds
A majority of Australians expect China will be the most powerful country in the world by 2035 as trust in the US tumbles, new research has found.
Just over one in three Australians (36%) trusted the US to act responsibly on the world stage, representing a 20-point fall from 2024 and the smallest proportion since the Lowy Institute began polling in 2005.
The thinktank's 2025 report found only one in four respondents had any confidence in president Donald Trump's approach to world affairs – less than half of the 46% who expressed faith in Joe Biden the previous year.
Confidence in the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, rose four points to 16%, and Australians were evenly split on whether Xi or Trump was a more reliable partner.
Australians were just as likely to view China as an economic partner than as a security threat for the first time since 2020 – though a high proportion of voters still distrust China and believe it will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years.
'There's slightly more trust, slightly less threat perceptions, [but] it's still a pretty bleak picture for how Australians look at China,' said Ryan Neelam, the poll author and a director at the Lowy Institute.
A majority of respondents believed the US would come to Australia's defence if it were attacked, with 63% agreeing, a drop from the 75% agreement recorded in similar questions in recent years.
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But Australians nonetheless continued to support the strong military relationship, despite a loss of trust likely inspired by Trump's 'shocking' and 'norm-breaking' foreign policy, according to Neelam.
'It's almost as if the Australian public are separating those two things in their minds: the instability and unpredictability of Trump's approach to world affairs, from the institution of the alliance.'
Since the 2024 survey, the gap between Australians' trust in the US compared with China has more than halved, as perceptions of China continued to improve from their nadir in 2022, Neelam said.
'That's quite remarkable for Australia's key security ally to have such a low level of trust,' he said.
'The weight of expectation is that China will be more powerful and more predominant in the global system.'
Just over one in four respondents believed the US would be the most important and powerful nation in 10 years' time, with more than half expecting China to take the lead.
Four in five voters said the alliance with the US was important for Australia's security, similar to the support observed in 2023 and 2024.
Support for the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal was also steady with two-thirds of those polled in favour, similar to the level observed since 2022.
Coalition voters and residents of Queensland and Western Australia were especially supportive, each recording about four in five people in favour, while Victorians and Labor voters were more lukewarm, at three in five.
Respondents were polled in March, prior to the US defence department's announcement of a review of the Aukus deal, which Anthony Albanese described as 'appropriate' ahead of a possible meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada.
Three in five people expressed confidence in Albanese's approach to world affairs in the Lowy poll, putting the prime minister just behind France's Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand's Christopher Luxon.
Luxon was the most trusted world leader, though nearly a quarter of those polled expressed no view, most of whom saying they did not know who he was.
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