India 4th most powerful nation in Asia but an ‘underachiever’: Lowy report

India is the fourth most powerful country in Asia, but it exerts less influence than expected given its available resources, a report released on Friday said. The United States of America (USA) holds the most power in Asia, followed by China and Japan.

According to Australia-based think tank Lowy Institute’s 2023 Asia Power Index, the gap between India’s resources and its influence in Asia is widening.

“This analysis reveals India to be an underachiever, performing less well than would be expected based on its size and available resources. Despite a small uptick in 2022, India’s Power Gap has on balance deteriorated over five years, and now stands at -2.8 points,” it said.

In the index, India scored 36.3 points based on eight parameters: economic capability, military capability, resilience, future resources, economic relationships, defence networks, diplomatic influence and cultural influence.

The country has shown improvement in cultural influence and diplomatic influence only. On all the remaining parameters, its performance has deteriorated compared to last year.

“India had the greatest gains in cultural influence (+2.5 points). It lost the most points in resilience (-4.9 points). Elsewhere, it improved in diplomatic influence (+2.2 points), while trending down in economic relationships (-3.2 points), defence networks (-2.6 points), economic capability (-2.2 points), future resources (-1 points) and military capability (-0.7 points),” the report said.

In the report, the countries with a score of more than 70 were categorised as “Superpowers”. The USA and China were the only superpowers, with scores of 80.7 and 72.5, respectively. Japan, with 37.2 points, stood in the third spot. Both Japan and India were categorised as the “Middle powers”.

It further revealed that the USA has managed to stay ahead of China in terms of influence, and it is unlikely that China will overtake it anytime soon.

“Yet the biggest surprise over the course of five editions of the index has been China’s inability to close or meaningfully narrow the gap to equal, let alone surpass, the United States in its comprehensive national power. The United States has maintained a narrow if durable edge as the leading superpower over the past half-decade. Washington’s own descriptor of Beijing as a near-peer competitor may hold indefinitely,” it said.

And even if it manages to overtake the USA, it is highly unlikely that China will ever be as dominant as the United States once was, the report added.

Despite its shortcomings, in future, India will likely become more influential in terms of economy, military and demography. It is reflected in its high ranking in terms of future resources measure, where it ranks behind just the USA and China.

“Its sheer size means the country is almost certainly destined to be a major power behind only the United States and China,” the report said.