Three of the world’s four largest economies are in Asia, and the fourth, the United States, is a Pacific power. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in Asia, compared with just over a tenth in the West. Asian power is on the rise.

Asia’s economic transformation is reshaping the global distributionof power, changing the way the region — and indeed the world — works politically and strategically. Just as significantly, tensions between Asian powers will define war and peace in the twenty-first century.

The Lowy Institute Asia Power Index is an analytical tool that aims to sharpen the debate on power dynamics in Asia.

The Index measures power across 25 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region, reaching as far west as Pakistan, as far north as Russia, and as far into the Pacific as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

This approach to Asian power allows variations in power projection to be measured within and between countries. Annual editions of the Index will track how the distribution of power in Asia shifts over time.

The big takeaway is that the US is still the most dominate power in Asia, but that is changing. Many US allies fear an ‘America First’ agenda under President Trump is hastening America’s decline in the region and bolstering China’s rise. Objectively the US still has a commanding lead over China in most ways, however over time this will change. Asian power is in flux.