China losing ground to US in an increasingly ‘bipolar’ Asia: Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index

New analysis finds the US has extended its lead over China for influence in the region, partly due to a diplomatic recovery from the low point of Donald Trump

Japan and India have both lost ground to the two superpowers, while Indonesia is one of the few countries to have climbed the rankings

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The Chinese and American flags. Power in Asia is increasingly a two-horse race, according to a new report. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:07pm, 6 Dec 2021

Asia is becoming increasingly “bipolar” as the world’s two superpowers China and the United States continue to jostle for position in the region while the influence of other once-strong states such as Japan recedes, a new analysis has found.

The US was the only major country in the region whose overall power increased this year, according to the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index 2021. China’s overall power fell for the first time since the index was first issued in 2018 having shown “no clear path to undisputed primacy in the Indo-Pacific”.

While the US and China retained their overall positions of numbers 1 and 2 respectively, Washington’s power relative to China’s had increased.

China’s decline was stark given its strong showing last year amid the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, but that did not mean China’s rise was compromised, the report said.

Meanwhile, Asia was becoming less multipolar as the top two were not being caught up by the next tier of regional countries and territories, the index authors Hervé Lemahieu and Alyssa Leng said.

“In fact, the two countries with the most potential to contribute to a regional multipolar order – Japan and India – have each lost more ground in 2021 than did China,” they said.

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