A global poll conducted by The Economist, covering 32 countries and 32,000 people, has delivered a stunning result. The survey reveals that China's global "fan club" is quietly growing in a full-on, cross-age, cross-region trend. In just one year, the number of people who see China as a leading global power jumped by 11 percentage points.

The most interesting finding is the age gap: the younger the respondents, the more they welcome Chinese leadership. Among global 18-24 year-olds, support for China and the US is almost tied. This echoes the findings in China Daily's "The World Through the Eyes of Gen Z" Global Youth Survey Research report.

This shift is also clear regionally, with Latin America and Europe seeing the biggest jumps, and over half of the respondents in Africa and the Middle East now prefer China. The report highlights a generational shift in perception, indicating that the world's understanding of China is shifting from secondhand opinions to firsthand experience, and from imagined impressions to lived reality.