VGP  - Viet Nam’s overall power ranking in 2019 remains unchanged from 2018, according to the latest Asia Power Index released Tuesday by Australia-based think tank Lowy Institute.

Rankings of top 15 countries and territories in 2019 Asia Power Index

For 2019, Viet Nam ranks 13th out of 25 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region with an overall score of 18 out of 100 compared to 16.5 in the previous year, said Lowy.

The United States remains the most powerful country with an overall score of 84.5 but China continues closing the gap with total score of 75.9 compared to 75.5 in 2018.

The two super powers are followed by Japan (42.5), India (41), Russia (35.4), the Republic of Korea (32.7), Australia (31.3), Singapore (27.9), Malaysia (22.8) and Thailand (20.7).

Rankings and overall scores of Viet Nam in 2018 and 2019

Lowy came up with the power index of the 25 countries in Asia Pacific using publicly available sources and its own resources.

The 2019 edition of the index has been expanded to 126 indicators across eight thematic measures of power. It features over 30,000 data points through a specially designed digital platform, which includes an interactive map, weightings calculator, drill-down explorations, country comparisons and influence charts. The Index is able to track shifts in the distribution of power with annual trends for each country

A country’s overall power is its weighted average across eight measures of power-economic resources, military capability, resilience, future trends, diplomatic influence, economic relationships, defense networks and cultural influence./.