BERLIN — The world’s perception of China as a major global power is growing, with many people believing it will rival the United States in influence by 2020, according to a major survey released this week.
Russia’s image as a world power has also rebounded sharply in the last two years, while India and Brazil are expected to emerge rapidly as economic and political heavyweights, according to the survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation.
Almost 9,000 people in nine of the world’s most powerful countries — the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, India and Brazil — were polled to determine public perceptions of “who rules the world,” as the foundation put it.
The results showed that 81 percent of those surveyed regard the United States as a world power today (the remaining 19 percent, for unstated reasons, disagreed). Only 61 percent said they would put the United States in the power category by 2020. In comparison, 50 percent judged China as a world power now, but 57 percent said it would be by 2020.
The survey did not offer a definition of “world power” to those questioned, and responses varied greatly by country.
For instance, 81 percent of Germans and 76 percent of Britons classified the European Union as a present-day world power. Only 5 percent in India agreed.
Russia’s standing soared in Europe, with more Germans (70 percent) and Britons (65 percent) than Russians themselves (58 percent) rating it as a world power.
Respondents ranked climate change, international terrorism, poverty and overpopulation, in that order, as the most serious threats facing the world.
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