South Asian researcher slams China for celebrating 'America's decline'

Slamming China for celebrating "America's decline", Jeff M Smith, Research Fellow, South Asia-Heritage Foundation, said that "We'll be OK if China's rise takes a nastier turn".

Slamming China for celebrating "America's decline", Jeff M Smith, Research Fellow, South Asia-Heritage Foundation, said that "We'll be OK if China's rise takes a nastier turn". "To my foreign comrades quietly cheering "America's decline," we're surrounded by allies and oceans. We have leading tech, a global reserve currency, a vast network of military allies, 5K+ nukes, and 10 aircraft carriers. We'll be OK if China's rise takes a nastier turn. Will you?" Smith said in a tweet.

This comes after a report by Pew research wherein it was stated that global perceptions of China have turned increasingly negative due to COVID-19 pandemic in the past few months. "The major finding is that unfavourable 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, as quoted by CNN.

Of the 14 countries polled by Pew Research, everyone had a majority negative view of China. In every country except for France, Japan and Italy, Beijing's reputation was at its lowest point on record. The past two years have seen a wave of negative news for the Chinese government. Criticism of Beijing's crackdowns on protesters in Hong Kong and mass internment of Muslim-majority ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region made headlines around the world. (ANI)