Over the past two decades, China's role in the geopolitical landscape has grown, particularly as a result of the country's rising economic and military power. Thus, U.S. leaders now view China as a strategic competitor—one that seeks to upend the post–World War II liberal international order. One of China's strategies in that competition is to seek influence in countries around the world. In this report, the authors assess China's ability to use various mechanisms of influence to shape the policies and behavior of 20 countries, as well as the lessons that these examples offer for the United States' strategic competition with China. With this study, the authors aim to produce a transferable framework (comprising inputs, intervening factors, and outputs) and other tools of analysis that can provide reliable means of assessing bilateral influence relationships in other cases.

Among the study's chief findings is that China's burgeoning economic power, above and beyond any other considerations, is the foundation for its influence. Furthermore, Beijing's ability to manipulate local political, economic, and social events to its benefit is an important factor in its influence efforts. If China's mammoth economic magnet is the gravitational center of its influence, its ability to reach into other countries and effectively manipulate perceptions and events is the predominant tool. Nevertheless, success in the competition for influence is as much about how the United States responds to current challenges as it is about anything China does or does not do.