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Turbulence and uncertainty
Turbulence and uncertainty: 2025 RankingsTurbulence and uncertainty: 2025 Rankings
About the author
Susannah Patton is Director, Asia Engagement at RMIT and a Nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute.
Topics
The 2025 Asia Power Index shows a region in flux. The United States is still the top power in Asia, with resources and influence that will survive any single administration. But this year, the gap between the United States and China shrank by more than two points, reducing the margin between the two countries to its lowest level since 2020.
Much uncertainty remains about President Donald Trump’s approach to Asia, with his administration having focused more on Europe and the Middle East in its first months in office. Yet the early report card provided by the 2025 Asia Power Index is not encouraging for the United States. China continues to erode the US advantage in terms of military capability. And while the United States is seeking to harness its latent economic power more directly, notably through the imposition of large tariffs on many countries, this has so far had a negative effect on US diplomatic influence in Asia.
And, facing longer-term structural challenges to its power in Asia, the ultimate test of US policies will be whether they support the strong economic growth required to sustain competition against America’s adversaries.
China, the only peer competitor to the United States in what remains a bipolar distribution of power in Asia, appears well prepared and confident in its responses to US economic coercive policies, retaliating with its own tariffs and export controls. Beijing has also successfully positioned itself to regional countries as a reliable partner opposing protectionism and unilateralism, benefiting from uncertainty about the Trump administration’s approach to Asia.
Russia’s power in Asia is resurging, aided by support from other authoritarian revisionist powers, in particular China and North Korea. The closer collaboration between these countries — on full display during China’s 2025 Victory Day Parade — will continue to challenge the United States and its allies.
Caught between the two superpowers, and anxious about rising tensions and protectionism, Southeast Asian countries are trying to assert their own influence. Under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia has cut a more prominent profile internationally, even before it assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2025. Other Southeast Asian middle powers have been less well able to project influence: Thailand has been preoccupied with its border conflict with Cambodia. And while Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, is more interested in diplomacy than his predecessor, his efforts have been focused globally rather than regionally.
Russia’s resurgence pushed Australia back to sixth place in the Asia Power Index. While the finding does not presage a collapse in Australia’s regional influence and relevance, it suggests that the country will need to work smarter with its resources to avoid losing competitiveness in a contested region.
