The survey showed that people in the nine countries considered "economic power and potential for growth" as the most important quality for a world power.

There was disagreement on the importance of "military power" as a factor, with a third of respondents in China and the United States listing it as crucial, but only 7 percent in Germany and 16 percent in Japan viewing it as important.

There were also differences in how the countries viewed the main challenges confronting the world. In seven of the nine countries, over 50 percent of respondents listed international terrorism as the chief challenge.

But in China and Brazil less than a third of those surveyed put terrorism in that category. The Chinese listed environmental destruction and scarcity of natural resources as top threats.

In only China and Germany was a majority of the population of the opinion that peace and stability in the world could best be achieved under the leadership of the United Nations.