China leads US and EU in trust to regulate AI in Pew's latest survey

China is more trusted than the US and the EU to effectively regulate AI, according to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, a US-based nonpartisan fact tank, among 12 countries and regions.

The survey showed that a median of 43% of the recipients said they trusted China to regulate AI effectively, 35% said they trusted the US and 34% trusted the EU.

China is the most trusted AI regulator in five of the 12 countries and regions surveyed, including Bangladesh, Malaysia and Pakistan.

In Singapore, respondents expressed the highest levels of trust in China and the EU.

In Chile and Thailand, respondents showed similar levels of trust in China, the US and the EU, while in Ghana, Peru and Colombia, people were about equally trusting the US and China.

The survey noted that most of the places included in the question were middle-income economies, according to World Bank lending classifications.

A separate Pew analysis of global views toward China found that "people in middle-income nations tend to view China more positively than those in high-income nations." The latest findings showed a change from Pew's 2025 survey on the same question among a different group of 25 countries.

At that time, respondents tended to trust the EU most to regulate AI, followed by the US and China.

The survey also found that trust in AI regulation was tied to people's views of China, the US and the EU.

Respondents who held favorable views of these actors were more likely to trust them to regulate AI than those with unfavorable views.

In Peru, for example, 57% of people with a favorable view of China said they trusted China to regulate AI, compared with 26% among those with an unfavorable view.

People's awareness of AI was another factor.

"People who have heard or read more about the technology express greater trust in other countries to regulate it than those who have heard or read less," said the survey.

The findings are part of a broader Pew Research Center study on how people around the world view AI, which was conducted among 42,151 people across 36 countries and regions from February 8 to May 13, 2026.