Pak tops index measuring global Chinese influence

Islamabad, Dec 10: Pakistan is the country in the world that is the most influenced by China, according to a new study that measures Beijing’s expanding global sway. The China Index — a database relaunched by DoubleThink Labs, a Taiwan-based research organization — ranks Pakistan atop a list of 82 other countries around the world, saying that its links to and dependency on Beijing in terms of foreign and domestic policy, technology, and the economy make it particularly susceptible to Chinese influence, RFE/RL reported. Behind Pakistan, Southeast Asia features prominently in the rankings, with Cambodia and Singapore listed in second and third, followed by Thailand. The Philippines is seventh and Malaysia is 10th. South Africa is the first African country at No. 5, where it is tied with Peru, the highest-ranked South American country, RFE/RL reported. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which border China’s western Xinjiang province, are the Central Asian countries most influenced by Beijing, coming in at eighth and ninth place on the index. Meanwhile, Germany is the highest-ranked European country at 19th and the US leads North America in the 21st position. “A major goal of (this database) is to raise awareness around the world about the different aspects of Chinese influence and what that can actually look like,” Min Hsuan-Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Doublethink Labs, told RFE/RL. “We’ve taken a much broader and nuanced look at what influence can be, which can tell us more about what Beijing is actually doing and the different ways it can apply pressure.” In compiling the China Index, the research team focused on nine categories to track influence around the world that include higher education, domestic politics, economic ties, foreign policy, law enforcement, media, military cooperation, cultural links, and technology. Wu says that this type of system leads to a more subtle understanding that challenges some assumptions about the levers of Chinese influence,