Countries That Are Most Influenced By China

(December 2022) To measure China's evolving overseas influence researches from DoubleThink Labs constructed The China Index that captures China's influence across nine domains: academia, domestic politics, economy, foreign policy, law enforcement, media, military, society, and technology.

• The 2022 China Index 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.
• 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.
• 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 United States leads North America in 21st position.