Chinese state media survey shows citizens’ least favorite country is Canada

In the past, Canada has been regarded as a preferable place to visit or live for Chinese citizens, however a new survey has shown that this is no longer the case.

Conducted by state owned Global Times Research Center, the survey puts Canada at the bottom of the list of Chinese citizens’ favorite countries. The survey showed Canada at the bottom of the ranking, with only 0.4% of respondents saying they have a positive opinion of them.

Singapore, on the other hand, received a positive response from 14% of participants, emerging at the top of the list, alongside China itself. The two most popular countries were followed by Germany, France, the U.S., Russia and Maldives.

Singapore was also the country Chinese people said they would like to visit the most (17.1%), followed by Maldives and France. Previous data gathered since 2018 reportedly showed that the island city-state did not even crack the top six up until now.

The poll results reflect issues between Ottawa and Beijing. On December 25th, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Western countries to stand united against China, claiming that the East Asian state has been “playing” them against each other.

“We’ve been competing, and China has been from time to time very cleverly playing us off each other in an open market competitive way,” Trudeau told Global News. “We need to do a better job of working together and standing strong so that China can’t, you know, play the angles and divide us one against the other.”

Canadians also seem to feel similarly about the Chinese. A survey by Research Co. and Glacier Media found that 68% of Canadians have an unfavorable opinion of China.