China In Eurasia

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 on December 8 by Doublethink Lab, a Taiwan-based research organization -- ranks the South Asian country 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.

"A major goal of [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 Lab, 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, most crucially around economics and trade.

"There's no one clear pattern for how China influences a country, but from the data we compiled, the economy isn't the determinative one," he said. "You can be economically independent but be tied in other ways, like with the military or a large Chinese diaspora that can be more influential."

Spotlight On Pakistan, Central Asia

Given the diverse factors shaping the ranking system, Pakistan's leading position is no surprise to longtime observers of the country's relationship with Beijing, which was forged in the early days of the Cold War.

The South Asian country is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a centerpiece of Beijing's globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative in which Chinese entities have funded and built hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure projects in the last decade.

Pakistan's ties with China, however, have ballooned across nearly every category used to compile its ranking in the index, especially when it comes to areas like military ties, technology, and foreign policy.

SEE ALSO:

China's Belt And Road Grapples With Mounting Debt Crisis, Impacting Central Asia, Pakistan, And Beyond

Shahzeb Jillani, a veteran journalist who helped compile research on Pakistan used for the database, says that many Pakistanis may be surprised to see their country ranking so high, but he hopes the findings will lead to greater debate and reflection about Islamabad's deepening ties with Beijing.

"One can only hope that this will encourage Pakistanis to debate the pros and cons of the relationship and what it could mean for the future," he said.

Central Asia has also seen its relationship with Beijing expand in recent years.

SEE ALSO:

Xi Showcases China's Eurasian Vision With Central Asian Tour, Putin Meeting

While trade and investment were an early impetus, Chinese influence now plays a growing role in foreign policy, local media, and increasingly in defense and security. Following Russia's February invasion of Ukraine, many analysts also see Central Asian countries deepening their China ties as they seek to diversify from Moscow.

While Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan rank in the top 10, Kazakhstan holds 15th place in the rankings, with Uzbekistan in the 24th spot, and Turkmenistan -- which sells a large portion of its natural gas to China but remains geopolitically isolated -- in 45th position.

Measuring Influence

Though the database includes just 82 countries, Doublethink Lab plans to expand it in the future, especially across Africa, another area of rising Chinese influence recently, and to Russia, which declared a "no limits" partnership with Beijing in February.

Wu says he hopes the China Index will be a valuable tool for comparison that can be used by researchers, activists, journalists, and watchdog groups around the world to get a better snapshot of the complex factors affecting their regions and the nuanced ways influence can be exercised.

For instance, Britain is ranked the second-highest European country, 27th on the index. It is something that Martin Thorley, an independent academic who did research on the United Kingdom for the database, says is the result of local engagement through academia and ties forged between British cities and regions with their Chinese counterparts over the years, rather than at the state level.

Wu adds that it's hard to discern exactly how one country gets influenced more than another and that there's no definitive "playbook" for Chinese influence. Rather, he says the recent research shows that Chinese policymakers tend to target certain countries within a region that have a lower barrier to entry and then branch outwards to neighbors based on the opportunities available.

"There are some countries in every region that rank high on our index and can be seen as an entry point," Wu said. "There's lots of collaboration through one country and then it expands out."

In a deal that was met with little fanfare, Tajikistan last month agreed to carry out regular anti-terrorism drills with Chinese security forces on its territory.

After all, Tajik and Chinese personnel have conducted bilateral military exercises in the past, including three since 2015.

But the deal agreed in late November formalizes the growing military cooperation between the two countries and provides a glimpse into Beijing's evolving ambitions for Tajikistan and its Central Asian neighbors.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February sent geopolitical shockwaves around Central Asia and has altered long-standing assumptions about the balance of power in the region, experts say. The Tajik-China agreement, they say, is another small step taken by Central Asian nations to distance themselves from traditional ally Moscow.

"Dushanbe is doing this with China to diversify away from its reliance on Russia," Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told RFE/RL. "The big question is whether Russia is OK with that."

Amid eroding Russian economic power in Central Asia accelerated by international sanctions against Moscow and added tensions over the war in Ukraine, Central Asian leaders -- predominantly Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon -- have looked to woo new partners and deepen pre-existing ties with other powers.

The result has been a flurry of diplomatic inroads with Europe, including a visit to Central Asia by European Council President Charles Michel in October and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in November. Both Toqaev and his Uzbek counterpart, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, also went to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron on separate occasions in November.

In addition to the West, the outreach has targeted Turkey, the Middle East, and perhaps most crucially China.

SEE ALSO:

Winter Tests Central Asia's Decrepit Energy Systems, People's Patience

On his first trip abroad since the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Kazakhstan in September before attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, where he met with a visibly humbled Russian President Vladimir Putin -- their first face-to-face meeting since Moscow invaded Ukraine.

"It's a window of opportunity for players like Europe, Turkey, and Iran, but also for Central Asian countries looking to diversify," said Umarov. "But there's still lots of sensitivity here [in Central Asia]. The region has never been in the middle of two fires like it is now."

'Red Lines'

According to Umarov, the region is currently navigating between its desire to branch out from its historic ties to Russia while looking to avoid a strong backlash from Moscow in response.

"The red lines are constantly shifting, but the main thing for Russia is that the West's security presence doesn't make a comeback," he said, referring to the nearly 20-year, U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan. "Russia doesn't want Central Asia to look [to the] West."

This makes growing ties with China -- such as the recent counterterrorism agreement with Tajikistan -- more palatable for the Kremlin, observers say.

China has been a growing economic force in Central Asia for decades, and many countries in the region, such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, owe billions of dollars to Beijing.

Beijing has moved to expand its security cooperation with the region in recent years, with Tajikistan becoming a focal point. China has long-standing concerns over terrorism spreading in the region from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan that all border its western Xinjiang Province.

Although Tajikistan officially denies its existence, Chinese security forces operate a security base along the Tajik-Afghan border with their Tajik counterparts. Beijing is also renovating old Soviet border outposts and building new border checks along Tajikistan's lengthy Afghan border.

In October 2021, Dushanbe also announced that China would fund and construct new facilities for a Tajik special rapid response unit in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO).

SEE ALSO:

China In Eurasia Briefing: Surveillance Tech In The Balkans And Protests At Home

According to the November agreement, Chinese and Tajik forces will hold drills every two years to improve coordination and the tactical skills of their antiterrorism units. The published text of the deal also states that the timing, location, and scale of the exercises are to be kept secret.

"The conventional wisdom about a division of labor where China is the big bank and Russia is the big gun in Eurasia has been out of touch for quite some time," Bradley Jardine, a fellow at the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told RFE/RL.

But while Beijing's security footprint continues to expand in the region, it remains limited in its scope and has a growing degree of overlap with Russia's own security interests for Central Asia.

"Unlike Russia, China's drills tend to be smaller-scale, involving internal security services acting in scenarios such as raiding terrorist encampments in the mountains or countering Islamists attacking towns in Xinjiang," Jardine said. "[This] shows how domestically oriented China's regional foreign policy remains."

The View From Beijing

While China is well positioned to grow its political, economic, and military influence in Central Asia as Moscow finds its credibility damaged, Beijing's gain is not necessarily seen as coming at Moscow's expense.

"I think the amount of attention paid to a potential rivalry with Russia and China is often overblown when it comes to security in Central Asia," said Umarov of the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace.

Beijing and Moscow reaffirmed their relationship in February by declaring a "no limits" partnership. Those ties have been tested amid the war in Ukraine and appear to have endured, in large part, owing to a shared animosity toward the West.

"Russia can accept China's growing security presence in [Central Asia], and the Kremlin understands that in many ways this is an inevitable process beyond its control," Umarov added.

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute and at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, says that while the Ukraine war has provided an opportunity for Central Asia to expand partnerships with many countries, Moscow's invasion hasn't upended Beijing's calculus for Central Asia and dealing with Russia in the region.

"This has been a year of major changes, but in Chinese terms things have not changed that dramatically," he told RFE/RL. "Tajikistan's difficult-to-police border with Afghanistan has been a constant source of concern for them, and it's something they want to deal with themselves."

Amid a tumultuous year for the region that has seen unrest and Russian intervention in Kazakhstan in January, conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, continued instability in GBAO, and protests followed by a crackdown in Uzbekistan's Karakalpakstan Republic, Beijing has offered support to local governments but kept its distance amid the crises.

Pantucci says that while China is worried about instability, it is reluctant to become an arbiter for the region's problems.

"There is an unwillingness to get dragged into local problems and a desire to keep some distance and deal with whoever comes out on top," he said. "What do they gain by diving into it?"