Widening power gap

China gaining traction, India losing it

To Indian leaders who have built up an exaggerated notion of the country’s global standing, the findings of the latest Asia Power Index by the Lowy Institute, Australia’s most respected think tank, should be sobering. India’s overall score declined 1.3 points compared to 2019. Lowy damns India, Asia’s third-largest economy, with faint praise by describing it as a “middle power”. The institute ranks countries on eight indicators. India made gains in four of them: Economic capability, military capability, resilience, and defence networks; it lost in terms of future resources, economic relationships, diplomatic influence, and cultural influence (the last constituting the