For more than 20 years, a major American research center has asked people around the world how they feel about the United States and China. This year, the order flipped: Across 36 countries, China now has a more favorable image than the United States in 25 of them—including Canada, Mexico, much of Europe and most of Southeast Asia. Joey Chou examines what that shift measures and what it does not. Public affection may be drifting toward Beijing, but opinion is not the same as power, and favorability is not an alliance. In the Indo-Pacific, the real test is whether changing attitudes lead governments to change their behavior.