New analysis has found the United States remains the most powerful country in Asia, while China's strength has been eroded by its strict COVID-19 lockdowns and border closures.
The Lowy Institute foreign policy think tank has released its annual Asia Power Index, which analyses the heft of countries across the region.
The 2022 report ranks Japan as the third most powerful country in Asia after the United States and China. India follows in fourth place, while Russia is ranked fifth, followed by Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia.
China had been steadily gaining on the United States since 2018, when the Lowy Institute first conducted the analysis, but the pandemic has slowed its rise over the last two years.
The project lead for the Asia Power Index, Susannah Patton, said China's diplomatic influence in Asia narrowly eclipsed that of the United States in 2022, partly because Beijing had wooed most countries across the region more assiduously than the Biden administration had.
China also remains the largest trading partner for most countries across the region, but Ms Patton said China's overall economic influence had been sapped by its strict COVID-zero measures, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party only eased late last year.
"We saw a sharp decline in China's connectivity and connections with the rest of Asia because when its borders were closed it wasn't having the same level of people exchanges, cultural exchanges [or] ties between businesses," she told the ABC.
"We saw investment to and from China drop off as well during that period. So that's really sharply curtailed China's economic influence, as well as its soft power."
The United States retains the top spot in the 2022 power index because it also remains stronger than China across several other measures — including military capability, defence networks and cultural influence.
Ms Patton said American power had overall proven "quite resilient" and the US enjoyed a much more favourable demographic outlook than China, which was grappling with an ageing society and plummeting birth rates.
Australia's position holds steady
The United States has also been intent on expanding its strategic footprint across Asia, for example by signing an agreement last week which will give its military access to four more military bases in the Philippines.
But both the US and China – like almost all countries tracked by the survey – saw their overall power ebb in 2022, as supply chains were battered by the COVID pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Many countries are now actually more dependent on their primary trade partners, they are more exposed to global trade and they have less diverse trade and export relationships," Ms Patton said.
"That means they are recording much lower scores for resilience."
One exception was Australia, which managed to hold steady in the 2022 index.
"Australia is the only significant country in the region to have a score which is comparable to what it was before the pandemic," Ms Patton said.
"Australia has many natural advantages — a relatively strong economy, a favourable geography."
"We also have good relationships for the most part with our neighbours, and experts also gave the Albanese government good marks for its approach to Asia — much better than the Morrison government received the previous year."
Meanwhile, despite Japan's military power growing in 2022, its overall strength ebbed considerably. That is partly because it is struggling with anaemic GDP growth and a rapidly ageing workforce.
While India improved both its cultural and diplomatic influence across Asia, the index found its economic influence waned in 2022 due to New Delhi continuing to turn its back on key regional trade agreements.
Ms Patton said the 2022 index highlighted some of the challenges facing both countries, which the United States and Australia have identified as key partners to help balance China.
"India has failed to leverage its size, and in Japan's case it has weakening economic fundamentals which means its economic influence in the region is declining much faster than it is establishing its new security role," she said.
"India and Japan will be important players in that next tier below the US and China, but their trajectory may not be what the US or Australia are hoping for."
