The poll showed public views of China and Russia have slipped in the past year. Of those polled, 39 per cent held positive views of China, a drop of six points. Forty per cent held a negative view.
When asked about Russia, respondents expressing negative views jumped eight points to 42 per cent while only 30 per cent said they had positive views of the country.
"This poll shows that people are paying attention to how countries operate and the way in which they operate gets judged," Miller said.
"In the case of China and Russia that judgment is getting increasingly negative."
The poll showed improvements in the way Canada, Egypt, Ghana, India, Italy and Japan viewed the U.S. Still, 12 countries had predominantly negative views compared to six with predominately positive views.
"In the case of the United States, there is a measure of recovery of less negative views towards the United States, which could be called the Obama effect," Miller said.
"But it's modest. They're basically back to the levels when we first monitored this back in 2005, which was still predominately negative."
As was the case in 2008, Iran, Israel and Pakistan were the three countries rated most negatively. The largest number of countries -- 19 out of 21 -- gave Israel negative ratings, with the exception of the U.S. and Russia.
In the U.S., more viewed Israel in a positive way and in Russia the opinions were divided. Researchers note that most polling was taken before the conflict in Gaza.
