(Central News Agency reporter Chen Yunyu, London, 8) The civic organization “Taiwan Democracy Lab”, which focuses on issues such as information warfare and democratic resilience, today released the “China Influence Index” covering 82 countries and regions. Pakistan ranks first in total score Taiwan ranks first in China’s degree of influence in media and social media.
The Taiwan Democracy Lab launched the “China In The World” (CITW) project in 2019, connecting hundreds of researchers and stakeholders in various fields to explore China’s influence in various countries and regions and information warfare activities, and released the “China Influence Index” (China Index) in an effort to raise awareness of the problems in the international community and provide a reference for decision-making and action.
The new index was launched today at an international conference in Berlin organized with the German Marshall Fund. The index comprehensively considers China’s influence in nine fields including academics, domestic policy, economy, foreign policy, law enforcement, media, military, society, and science and technology, with a total of 99 indicators.
In the overall ranking covering 82 countries and regions, the top 30 in the “China Influence Index” are Pakistan, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Peru and South Africa ranked fifth, followed by the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Malaysia and Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Egypt, Tanzania, Germany, Ghana, United States, Kenya, Panama, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Mexico, Georgia, Chile.
Taiwan ranks 11th in the world at large, but ranks first in the “China Influence Index” in the two major sectors of media and society, surpassing other 81 countries and regions.
In terms of regions, Southeast Asia has the highest “China Influence Index”, followed by Central Asia. However, in the regional classification of “East Asia and Southeast Asia” which includes Taiwan, the “China Influence Index” of South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan is lower than that of Taiwan.
It is worth noting that in Europe, the “China Influence Index” ranked from top to bottom are Germany, United Kingdom, Georgia, Italy, Serbia, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Ukraine, Armenia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Belarus , Austria, Moldova, Poland, Estonia, Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Montenegro, Latvia, Albania, North Macedonia. This may be somewhat different from the image presented by the media.
The Taiwan Democracy Lab pointed out that the research results of the “China Influence Index” show that China’s functioning of various relationship networks is more effective in promoting the “Friendship with China” policy of target countries and regions than the coercion.
Furthermore, the proportion of imports originating in China to the total imports of a specific country and region is highly positively correlated with the overall “China Influence Index”. The number of Chinese students studying abroad has a significant positive correlation with the “China Influence Index” in academia.
It is worth noting that when the gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita of a specific country and region are higher and the level of corruption is lower, China is more inclined to exert influence by lobbying. That is to say, when the efficiency of the corruption profit network is low, China tends to resort to coercion and other high-pressure methods. (Editor: Yang Zhaoyan) 1111209
