From December 2014 to January 2015 , market research firm YouGov surveyed internet users from all around the globe. The result was a list of the most admired people in the world, as well as individual lists for nine countries.

YouGov gathered open-ended nominations from panelists across 34 countries, asking them simply: “Thinking about people in the world today, which [man or woman] do you admire the most?” These nominations were then used to compile a list of the 25 men and 25 women who received the most nominations and were nominated in at least 2 countries. An additional five popular local figures were added to the lists for individual countries.

And here is the list of the most admired people in China:

In the male category the first place goes to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and second place goes to Alibaba founder Jack Ma, the top three is concluded with founder of the largest software corporation in the world, Bill Gates. The full list of the most admirable people includes: prominent politician Zhu Rongji; Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka Shing; physicist Stephen Hawking, the subject of a recent Oscar-nominated biopic; kung fu sensation Jackie Chan; American billionaire investor Warren Buffet; soccer star David Beckham and singer-songwriter Andy Lau.

China’s most admired females are lead by a Chinese tennis star Li Na, with runner up Hillary Clinton, followed by Chinese “iron lady” Wu Yi. The list also includes China’s it girl Fan Bingbing, Queen Elizabeth, singer Faye Wong, TV anchor Yang Lan, Angelina Jolie, Celine Dion and Angela Merkel.

As for the world’ most admired list, the first place was taken by Bill Gates, and the second goes to Barack Obama, followed by Xi Jinping. The  Chinese leader’s popularity in the world’s list was explained by “a massive domestic fanbase as leader of the world’s most populous country”.

The World’s most admired list also includes Jackie Chan at  fourth place and Jack Ma in eighth.

Unlike Xi Jinping, who ranks highly only in China, Jackie Chan seemed to be admired for his cinematography work in numerous countries: he is number 15 in United States most admirable list, number eight in India, number five in Egypt, number six in Singapore’s, number ten in Finland, number seven in Nigeria and number two in Russia, right after Vladimir Putin, impressive huh? Among Chinese females only Faye Wong made it to the world’s most admirable list, landing at number seventeenth.

However, when considering China’s list, it’s might be wise to consider the fact that in Mandarin Chinese there are different connotations associated with 羡慕 (xiànmù), the word for admire – which is also the word for envy, but does not hold any negative connotations, effectively meaning there may be different concepts of admiration among different cultures.