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China Seen As Growing Power

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The Washington Post

Published: December 15, 2007

BERLIN - The world's perception of China as a major global power is growing, with many people thinking 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 also has rebounded sharply in the past two years, while India and Brazil are expected to emerge rapidly as economic and political heavyweights, according to the survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a German research group.

Almost 9,000 people in nine of the world's stronger 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 in the title of its report.

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.
Bertelsmann conducted a similar survey in 2005. Russia saw the biggest boost, with 39 percent of respondents classifying it as a world power today, compared with 27 percent two years ago.
Bertelsmann officials said they wanted to measure perceptions of current reality in global power politics, but also how the public foresees the near future.

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