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Feelings towards other nations

−1 from 2023

In 2024, New Zealand rated 84° on the feelings thermometer.

Question Feelings towards other nations

Please rate your feelings towards some countries and territories, with one hundred meaning a very warm, favourable feeling, zero meaning a very cold, unfavourable feeling, and fifty meaning not particularly warm or cold. You can use any number from zero to one hundred: the higher the number the more favourable your feelings are towards that country or territory. If you have no opinion or have never heard of that country or territory, please say so.

Responses from 2024.

  1. 80°
  2. 70°
  3. 60°
  4. 50°
  5. 40°
  6. 30°
  7. 20°
  1. 84° New Zealand
  2. 75° Japan
  3. 74° United Kingdom
  4. 64° Taiwan
  5. 61° Philippines, Ukraine
  6. 59° United States
  7. 56° Indonesia, Papua New Guinea
  8. 54° India
  9. 40° Myanmar
  10. 34° China
  11. 26° Iran
  12. 21° Russia
  13. 15° North Korea

In 2006, this question asked respondents about their feelings towards ‘countries and peoples’. From 2007 to 2018, this question asked respondents about their feelings towards ‘countries’. Until 2015, this question asked respondents about ‘Great Britain’, and from 2015 to 2019, respondents were asked about ‘United Kingdom (Great Britain)’. Until 2019, this question asked respondents about ‘Myanmar/Burma’. Until 2023, this question asked respondents about ‘East Timor’.

Total
All groups

2026 observation

Since the inception of the Lowy Institute Poll in 2005, the ‘feelings thermometer’ has measured Australians’ warmth towards other countries and territories on a scale of 0° (coldest feelings) to 100° (warmest feelings), with each score being the mean of results produced by the polled sample.

New Zealand has topped the feelings thermometer again in 2026 at 86°, a position it has held in each of the 16 years it has been included. It is followed closely this year by Canada (79°) and Japan (77°). Feelings towards the United Kingdom dropped three degrees from last year’s Poll to 72°. Fiji was close behind at 70°.

Australians felt a similar degree of warmth towards France this year (66°) as the last time it was polled in 2023 when it registered 68°. Feelings towards Taiwan were nearly as warm at 64° and remain similar to last year. Feelings towards Ukraine (60°) and Papua New Guinea (58°) also remain unchanged.

India registered lukewarm results on the thermometer, falling two degrees from last year to 49°. Mexico (51°) and Egypt (46°) also registered tepid results, while Saudi Arabia’s result of 37° marks a five-degree increase since last polled in 2020.

In Southeast Asia, Australians expressed moderate levels of warmth towards the Philippines (58°) and Indonesia (55°). The outlier was Myanmar, where Australians’ feelings sit at a cool 39°.

Feelings towards the superpowers are equally cool, but changing. The United States’ reading fell to 46°, a drop of four degrees since last year and thirteen degrees since 2024. Feelings towards China, however, increased four degrees from last year to 41°. This marks a warming of seven degrees since 2024 and nine degrees since 2021.

The frostiest feelings were reserved for North Korea (16°), Iran (22°), and Russia (23°).

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