This study elaborates the link between interpersonal trust and government trust by investigating how the extent of outwardness in one’s trusting relation is associated with the varying trust in governments of different administrative levels. Taking advantage of survey data collected in China, a country with documented hierarchical government trust and notable trust variations across specific trustees, we show that, in both urban and rural areas, the outward orientation of interpersonal trust is positively associated with the trust in subnational governments, while being independent from the confidence in central government. This leads to a less hierarchical and more balanced pattern of government trust. Relatively, generalized trust, although widely examined in previous literatures, does not reveal a comparable effect. The results demonstrate that the civic aspect of interpersonal trust that mitigates the hierarchy of government trust is not just trusting, but trusting outwardly.