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Indicator selection process

Doublethink coordinated with the Index Committee to develop and select the most relevant Indicators for each Domain. The first edition of Indicators were designed in January and February 2021.

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Design guidelines

The Indicators were designed with the following factors in mind:
  • Index scope: Each of the 9 Domains contains 11 Indicators. A total of 99 Indicators were sent to regional partners to conduct the research. Indicator responses are designed to be completed within 30 minutes.
  • Domain Indicators: Within each Domain, each of the 11 Indicators targets a single observable feature of PRC influence that is both relevant and important to the scope of the Domain. Each feature corresponds to one Indicator.
  • Indicator independence: Each Indicator is conceptually independent of the others in the same Domain. There will be no overlap between Indicators to avoid double counting.
  • Response recency: Each Indicator focuses on one issue that reflects the current status of PRC influence in the target country, focusing on events or incidents that occurred within the Index timeframe. However, if such an event is a continuous one, evidence prior to the timeframe is acceptable. For example, the Indicator “Are there Confucius Institutes in your country?” does not intend to show whether the Confucius Institutes were established within the timeframe; rather, it intends to show whether the Confucius Institute exists. Therefore, evidence that Confucius Institutes were established within a reasonable timeframe before our research is accepted.
  • Option scales: Depending on the nature of the Indicator, responses are either binary (yes or no) or graded from 0 to 4. Higher scale values indicate a higher degree of PRC influence.
  • Neutrality: No Indicator invites value judgment on the presence or absence of PRC influence. Each Indicator focuses on a single issue.
  • Balance: Indicators within a single Domain are designed to cover equal scope within that Domain, such that each Indicator merits equal weight within its Domain.

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Indicator development process

Candidate Indicators relevant to measuring PRC influence in each Domain are suggested by the Index Committee in collaboration with Doublethink. Candidate Indicators are then modified to fit the grading system. The final set of 11 Indicators capture the most important aspects of PRC influence. Indicators are of two types: binary (YES/NO) or graded. Binary Indicators ask for the presence or absence of a particular phenomenon. Graded Indicators consider the scale and significance of the phenomenon (see next section).

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Grading system

The goal of the grading system is to capture more nuanced data for further comparison between countries. The grading system addresses the problem that the scale and significance of an Indicator can vary across countries, and therefore so does the level of PRC influence. For example, one Indicator asks whether Chinese Students and Scholars’ Associations (CSSAs) are present in the country. In terms of scale, there may be a CSSA at a single university or multiple universities. Assessing for significance, the universities at which CSSAs are present could be nationally prominent or relatively less prestigious. We therefore provide a grading matrix that accounts for these two factors, mapping them to a score in a range of integers from one to four: Continuing with the example of university CSSAs, should there be a country with CSSAs at multiple universities, respondents are asked to consider the Indicator at the maximum significance level – in other words, responses should reflect the most significant university at which there is a CSSA. Regional partners and local experts provide similarly concrete interpretations for other graded Indicators. As the table above indicates, scores for graded Indicators correspond as follows: 0 = no phenomenon; 1 = few, but insignificant; 2 = more than a few, but insignificant; 3 = few, but significant; 4 = more than a few, and significant.

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Layer system

The Indicators fall into three layers that classify PRC influence: exposure, pressure, and effect. The majority of the Indicators measure the exposure of a country to a mechanism of PRC influence – e.g. economic dependence, collaboration, or receiving some form of benefit. Some Indicators ask about pressure overtly applied through these mechanisms of PRC influence – e.g. threatening economic punishment to provoke or prevent a political decision. Other Indicators ask about the observable effect brought about through mechanisms of influence, or changes in decision-making in favor of PRC interests – e.g. loosening of business regulations to facilitate inbound PRC investment. These three layers form a causal chain, from exposure via pressure to effect, that captures the PRC influence process. Some have argued that exposure-linked Indicators are an inadequate measure of PRC influence, and that Indicators should only encompass the effect of PRC influence. Many Index consumers nonetheless consider exposure to be an important measure of PRC influence with relevance to the work of policymakers, academics, and advocates. We argue that if the final set of Indicators tests for layers of influence from exposure to pressure and effect, then countries that are experiencing significant effects from PRC influence will regardless be ranked highly in overall and Domain-level scores. Meanwhile, the Index will capture all phenomena of interest.

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Exclusion of measure of resistance to influence

One consideration faced in the methodology was whether to measure resistance to PRC influence. We excluded Indicators referring to opposition to influence for the sake of simplicity and conceptual clarity. In many instances, questions about resistance are conceptual opposites to influence effects – e.g. instead of asking whether a country has introduced legislation to ban Huawei from 5G networks, we can ask whether Huawei 5G technology has been included.