India, Malaysia and Thailand face the highest political and social risk among Asia-Pacific countries in 2009, mainly because of internal instability, a political risk consultancy said.

The Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) assessed 16 countries in the region on factors such as the risk of disruptive political change, the threat posed by social activism and vulnerability to policy changes by other governments. A score of zero represented the best socio-political situation and 10 the highest risk.

“India, Thailand and Malaysia are not so much vulnerable to negative fallout from the global financial crisis as they are to factors that are mainly internal,” said Robert Broadfoot, managing director of PERC.

“For these countries, the coming global economic storm is only going to make a bad situation worse,” he said.

Thailand is the second riskiest country in Asia for 2009 with a score of 6.28, as the current political turmoil threatens to drag into 2009 and is eroding the country’s key institutions.

Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia were ranked most stable and low in political risk for 2009 even though their economies are likely to be hurt by the global financial crisis, PERC said.

For the United States, being at the epicentre of the financial crisis has weakened the country economically and psychologically, PERC said.

The US political and military profile will be lower than before and it will become less aggressive in pushing its views on other countries. In Asia, the US may rely more on its regional allies such as Japan, Singapore and Australia to push its agenda. China scored 5.33 on PERC’s scale and the consultancy expects the world’s most populous nation to have a difficult year in 2009 as the government tries to sustain economic momentum and boost domestic demand in the face of weaker export markets.