CHICAGO - The level of trust among Chinese citizens in their government reached 91 percent, whereas this index for US citizens is only 39 percent, the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer released on Tuesday showed.

The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer is the 22nd annual trust and credibility survey conducted by Edelman, the world's largest global public relations consultancy firm.

Powered by Edelman Data & Intelligence and consisting of 30-minute online interviews conducted on Nov. 1-24 last year, this survey has 36,000 respondents from 28 countries.

Of all the four categories the barometer covers, namely business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government and media, the trust index of Chinese citizens increased, while that of US citizens fell. Overall, the trust index of Chinese increased 11 points to 83 while that of Americans fell 5 points to 43.

Focusing on China, the Edelman report cited several internal and external factors to explain why popular support was so high in the past year.

According to its analysis, China was the first major economy to reopen and thrive after the COVID-19 outbreak. It was the only major economy to see growth in 2020 with that momentum continuing throughout most of 2021.

Moreover, the Chinese government made progress in other areas in 2021, such as the fight against pollution and its anticorruption campaign, according to the report.