Measuring power in Asia

While the West tends to dismiss North Korea as a rogue state or hermit kingdom, the reality is that North Korea is a nuclear power. That automatically boosts its position on the international stage. The Lowy Institute’s 2024 Asia Power Index (API), released this week, makes several mentions of North Korea, perhaps the most noteworthy of which is its classification of the country as a “middle power” alongside 15 others including South Korea, Russia and Japan.

The country poses a major security threat not just in the Asia-Pacific region, but globally, given its possession of missiles capable of reaching the continental United States.

Its formidable military capabilities are more than enough to warrant this status. Specifically, the API defines North Korea as “a misfit middle power” that “derives its power principally from its military resources and nuclear weapons capability”. While Pyongyang’s weak performance on the Index in terms of economic relationships, diplomatic and cultural influence, and other measures of power means it ranked towards the bottom of the middle power list, its place in this category is nonetheless warranted. The country poses a major security threat not just in the Asia-Pacific region, but globally, given its possession of missiles capable of reaching the continental United States.

Another notable finding from the Index relates to North Korea’s relationship with Russia. The API highlights Vladimir Putin’s 2024 visit to Pyongyang, describing it as “an effort to shore up Russian influence [rather] than an indicator of continued relevance”, arguing that Moscow’s resources remain focused on Europe, not Asia.

While the latter is true, Russia’s relationship with North Korea is increasingly affecting the war in Ukraine. North Korean weapons are reportedly being used by Russia in at least six regions of Ukraine, and Pyongyang continues to provide Moscow with artillery and weapons – some even manufactured this year – for use in the conflict.

Although the API report points out Russia’s loss of diplomatic influence over the past year, Russian diplomats remain in close contact with their North Korean counterparts. Multiple Russian delegations have visited North Korea in 2024, including military, law enforcement, and intelligence delegations, as well as youth groups and diplomats. Most recently, senior Russian security official Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong-un on 13 September. So, while Russia may have alienated a great number of former partners, it is investing its diplomatic resources strategically, where it knows it can get beneficial returns.

China’s (ongoing) lack of regular political exchanges with long-time ally North Korea stands out, especially this year, which marks 75 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

When it comes to China, the report points out the lack of high-level meetings between Beijing and Pyongyang, stating that in 2023, China “held a bilateral diplomatic dialogue at leader or foreign minister level with every other Asia Power Index participant except North Korea and Taiwan”. While the absence of diplomatic meetings with Taiwan is understandable, China’s (ongoing) lack of regular political exchanges with long-time ally North Korea stands out, especially this year, which marks 75 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

While the two governments agreed to celebrate the occasion through various exchanges and deepened cooperation, very little has come of it so far. Instead, President Xi has chosen to keep his distance, while Putin and Kim grow ever closer. Both Pyongyang and Beijing are likely making strategic decisions, with North Korea wanting more independence from China and the Chinese side not wanting to be paired with the likes of Russia and North Korea on the world stage.

Given China’s diplomatic and economic interests, Beijing is unlikely to join a military trilateral pact involving North Korea and Russia – at least for now. Nevertheless, Beijing will continue supporting Pyongyang to prevent a crisis along its border and to maintain stability, even as North Korea and Russia expand ties into potentially dangerous areas.

When we think of power, we typically focus on the economic strength and military might of a country. Timor-Leste, the newest addition to the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, has a tiny GDP of just under US$6.5 billion at purchasing power parity, and fewer than half the armed forces personnel of Papua New Guinea.

Yet the Asia Power Index provides a more comprehensive view that considers both a country’s resources and the influence it wields in Asia. Timor-Leste shows that despite its small size, and ranking 26th out of 27 Index countries for comprehensive power, it has influence to be reckoned with.

Timor-Leste ranks 20th for diplomatic influence. This relatively high score – beating more sizeable countries such as Sri Lanka – is a result of Timor-Leste’s investment in three fields of diplomacy: its Southeast Asian neighbours, the Portuguese-speaking world, and multilateral organisations.

Participation in multilateral meetings was an unusually strong driver of international engagement for Timor-Leste.

Within Southeast Asia, Dili has diplomatic representation in the capitals of every ASEAN country, along with three consulates in Indonesia. Since having its admission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed in principle, Timor-Leste has attended all meetings at leader and foreign minister level, including special summits with dialogue partners such as Australia. In 2024, it has also begun attending ASEAN defence ministers’ meetings.

The Asia Power Index incorporates research from the Lowy Institute’s Global Diplomacy Index, which captures Dili’s strong ties with the Lusophone, or Portuguese-speaking, world. It has diplomatic representation in half of the other Lusophone Community (CPLP) member countries: Brazil, Mozambique, Portugal, a new post in Angola opened in 2024, and a standalone mission to the CPLP headquarters in Lisbon.

Timor-Leste has also prioritised its relationships with multilateral organisations. This includes its diplomatic representation to those organisations and participation in multilateral diplomatic dialogues, an indicator for which it ranks 10th, attending 55 meetings with other Index members in 2023. Participation in multilateral meetings was an unusually strong driver of international engagement for Timor-Leste, accounting for 31 of 40 total overseas trips by its leaders and foreign minister.

That Timor-Leste is so diplomatically active even before it has acceded to ASEAN suggests that its influence will likely continue to grow in the years to come.

The Asia Power Index paints a mixed picture of Timor-Leste’s resilience, which we define as the capacity to deter threats to state stability. Timor-Leste ranks 22nd for this measure, ahead of three ASEAN members: Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The country performs relatively well when it comes to political stability, ranking 10th, and in the resource security sub-measure. Timor-Leste currently has a favourable energy and fuel trade balance, and strong energy self-sufficiency. However, it has low fuel security, with a deficit of refined petroleum as a proportion of GDP of approximately five per cent. On other dimensions, including geoeconomic security, it performs less well, with limited and undiversified trade relationships. The country also has very limited international physical connectivity, with flight connections to only Bali and Darwin.

Much will also depend on the relationships that Timor-Leste has with its neighbours, Indonesia and Australia.

For Timor-Leste, much will depend on the future of its sovereign wealth fund, the Petroleum Fund of Timor-Leste. Currently, the country has the tenth-largest sovereign wealth fund in the region. However, its value is declining each year, and there are concerns over the future of the fund, with predictions that it will be depleted within ten years unless further resources from the Greater Sunrise gas field are realised.

Much will also depend on the relationships that Timor-Leste has with its neighbours, Indonesia and Australia. Timor-Leste’s admission into the Asia Power Index resulted in large gains for Indonesia in its influence measures. Nearly 60 per cent of Timor-Leste's diaspora population resides in Indonesia, along with more than 1,000 Timorese students undergoing tertiary education there. In terms of trade and inward investment, Indonesia is by far Timor-Leste’s largest partner, accounting for around a quarter of the total for each indicator.

For Australia, the Asia Power Index confirms that Timor-Leste, despite its small size, should not be underestimated. It has strengths as well as vulnerabilities, and its diplomatic clout, which looks set to rise in the years ahead, means its leaders will continue to staunchly defend its interests – including in the context of negotiations over Greater Sunrise. And while Indonesia’s influence in Timor-Leste is apparent in several indicators, Australia’s role stands out in only one dimension, as the largest aid donor, providing about 50 per cent of all aid to Timor-Leste from Asia Power Index countries.

Each year, the Lowy Institute Asia Power Index ranks the relative power of states in Asia across eight metrics. The key findings for 2024 are available on the Asia Power Index interactive. However, like every year, there are a handful of results that seem counterintuitive. In this article, we unpack the top five for 2024.

Singapore is more powerful than Indonesia

Singapore ranks eighth out of 27 countries for comprehensive power in Asia, besting ninth-ranked Indonesia by one place. How is it possible that a country of fewer than six million people, with a land size of around 700 square kilometres, can be more powerful than a nation of 280 million spread across almost 1.9 million square kilometres? Even when it comes to GDP, Indonesia’s economy is four times larger than that of Singapore.

While this finding may seem counterintuitive, consider that power is the capacity of a state to shape and respond to its external environment. Singapore is small, wealthy and highly networked with the world. So while it lags Indonesia in terms of national resilience, Singapore is able to devote more resources to its military capability and is more deeply integrated into the region through defence networks, cultural projection, and trade and investment links. By contrast, Indonesia’s huge population and lower level of development demands trade-offs, typified by president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s commitment to both military modernisation and providing free lunches to school children.

India’s population doesn’t make it a superpower

The Asia Power Index ranks India third for overall power – well behind China and the United States – which goes against the grain of the assumptions that many Indians have about their country’s influence. The Pew Research Center shows that 68 per cent of Indians see India’s power as on the rise, compared to a median of 28 per cent in other countries surveyed about India’s influence. Yet much like Indonesia, India’s huge population is a call on resources as well as a resource in and of itself. This paradox is summed up neatly by US strategist Michael Beckley’s shorthand formula for calculating comprehensive national power: multiplying GDP by GDP per capita, to account for the welfare costs imposed by a large population. The Asia Power Index provides a granular assessment that tracks in line with this approach. It shows that India still has latent potential to increase its influence in Asia.

South Korean popular culture isn’t a superpower

Korean pop, beauty, drama and fashion are all conquering the world. So why does the Asia Power Index rank South Korea just eighth for cultural influence, a decline from seventh place in 2023?

The Asia Power Index doesn’t specifically measure indicators such as online streaming numbers from Spotify or Netflix because it isn’t possible to accurately benchmark or compare interest in the 27 countries of the Asia Power Index. Are we missing a trick? One indicator we do track is export of cultural services. In 2022 (the most recent year of data available), South Korea’s cultural exports reached US$2 billion, nearly double their 2021 value. Online search interest in South Korea, which we measure, is also a proxy for cultural power because related terms such as “Korean food”, “K-pop” or “K-beauty” are captured. Yet in 2022 and 2023, South Korea’s world cup football games attracted more online search interest in Asia than the announcement that its biggest boy band, BTS, would be completing military service. This suggests that pop culture is a less important driver of cultural influence than many assume.

North Korea is resilient

A secretive dictatorship with closed borders and an estimated GDP per capita of just $1,057 might sound in danger of collapsing in on itself. So it will surprise some readers to learn that North Korea ranks ninth for the resilience measure. Consider, however, that resilience is defined as the capacity to deter external threats to state stability. While North Korea scores near the bottom on most of the determining sub-measures – internal stability (ranked 24th), resource security (7th), geoeconomic security (26th) and geopolitical security (22nd) – it ranks fourth for nuclear deterrence because it is one of just a handful of countries in Asia with nuclear capabilities. It also scores relatively highly (7th) for resource security, mostly because it is nearly self-sufficient in energy. Standing alone and avoiding dependence on others is the regime’s primary goal. But its success in this domain comes at a cost in others: the country has a score of 0.0 for economic relationships.

The US still leads China on technology

At first glance, the finding that the United States still handily beats China in the technology sub-measure (a component of economic capability) might seem at odds with daily headlines that posit China’s growing technological edge over the West. Certainly, China has an advantage in some critical technologies and green technology such as electric vehicles. But increasingly, analysts are pushing back on the idea that China has already established tech supremacy. Almost all the top ten largest technology companies by market capitalisation are still US companies. China’s innovation spending has achieved results in some areas, but is still wasteful and inefficient. The Asia Power Index focuses on the underlying fundamentals of tech success, rather than particular technologies, and these suggest that overall the United States remains in the lead.

How do you convince the American foreign policy establishment, squarely fixated on China, that the regional context in which US-China competition takes place matters? And how do you unpick the battle of narratives about how that regional competition is playing out?

That was the task Susannah Patton and I set ourselves in an article published this week in Foreign Affairs.

Fatalists believe China is already an unassailably dominant force in Asia. US primacists see China as weak, vulnerable and ultimately containable. Others, including US allies such as Australia and Japan, champion a third way – a multipolar Indo-Pacific that could arrest China’s ambitions for regional hegemony.

But the six editions of the Asia Power Index, the latest of which will be released on Monday, point instead to a more durable duopoly. The dynamic is not that of a rising power eclipsing an established one. Rather it is of two powers that will likely continue to coexist as near peer competitors.

In the words of Singapore’s Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June, “the US and China are dominant protagonists to decide Asia’s fate for this decade and beyond”.

A comparison with other regions makes this plain.

Unlike in Europe, the comparatively small footprint of America’s alliances in Asia has not grown in decades.

In the Middle East, a handful of players – China, Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia – are jostling for advantage as the United States continues to retreat. But no regional power reigns supreme. Call this messy multipolarity.

In Europe, a cohesive multipolarity prevents any single country from posing a hegemonic threat. Russia is banking on faltering US support for Ukraine, but it does not have the resources to launch a direct conflict with a much larger bloc of EU and NATO countries aligned against it.

By contrast, no major power or constellation of Asian partners comes close to being able to match China in the absence of the balancing role of the United States.

Asia’s topography of power, defined by its twin peaks, is often missed by the flat earthers of national security wonks – those who believe in the emergence of a single global theatre of multipolar contestation, or a fusion of the Indo-Pacific with the Euro-Atlantic. The fact is, when it comes to power politics, regional dynamics still count for more than the spillover between them.

Asia’s bipolarity also stands in contrast to the multipolar makeover that the Biden administration has sought to give its Asian alliance network. As US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan put it in 2021, a new “latticework of alliances and partnerships” is enabling third countries to contribute more to the region’s security and to push back against China. For his part, President Xi Jinping has drawn a parallel between the expansion of NATO in Europe and the United States’ alliance-building efforts in Asia.

Yet both Beijing and Washington overestimate the changes to the United States’ defence network in this part of the world. Unlike in Europe, the comparatively small footprint of America’s alliances in Asia has not grown in decades. And upgrading alliances alone cannot deliver a decisive additional advantage to the United States in its competition with China.

The balance between the United States and China creates a big disincentive for competition to spill over into outright war.

The good news is that Asia does have, to use one of Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s preferred terms, a certain (but not infallible) strategic equilibrium. The stability brought about by bipolarity is underappreciated in at least three ways.

First, the balance between the United States and China creates a big disincentive for competition to spill over into outright war. China has no shortage of flash points in the region, notably over Taiwan and the South China Sea. What is surprising, however, is that they have not yet turned into more deadly conflicts.

This is not to be complacent about the risk of great power conflict. But we should recognise that things could be worse. Contrast Asia’s relative peace with Europe and the Middle East.

Second, Asia has two poles, but an absence of strong blocs. There is no European-style concert of powers, Middle Eastern free-for-all, or Cold War–era system of walled division. Instead, Asia’s version of bipolarity allows most countries to swim between the world’s superpowers without fully committing to either.

This matters to the balance of power because non-aligned countries are the majority in Asia and at the heart of its regional institutions. “Asymmetric multipolarity” is a mouthful of a term, but that may be how active hedgers such as Singapore and Vietnam are exploiting their options and choices. This too has a stabilising effect.

Finally, even from China’s point of view, Asia would be more dangerous and chaotic without the influence of the United States. A US retreat from Asia would leave China dominant but with still no clear route to establishing a stable Sino-centric order. Beijing has territorial or maritime disputes with at least ten other countries. And without the US security umbrella, South Korea – and possibly even Australia or Japan – might seek to develop nuclear weapons.

What does all this mean for Washington? An effort to restore US primacy would be seen by many Asian countries as disastrously revisionist. To find a lasting strategic equilibrium will instead require that America focus on shoring up its position as a status quo power, one of two poles in Asia. By giving allies greater confidence in US commitments and the endurance of a bipolar balance of power, Washington can help prevent them from seeking dangerous alternative pathways to security in a Plan B world.

Washington’s biggest challenge, however, is to redress the shift away from the United States by the region’s non-aligned players. Doing so will not restore US primacy but can help ensure that bipolarity – the least bad option for America and the region – endures.

This article is based on a longer essay by Susannah Patton and Hervé Lemahieu in Foreign Affairs. Please follow this guest link for free access to the essay, valid for 30 days.