"Countries like China and other BRICS have experienced only modest declines in economic growth since 2007 and 2009," said Taylor, an avid China watcher.

"As China and the BRICS continue to advance economically and output growth recovers, globalization should likely progress," said Taylor, adding that the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone is one example of this, which shows China's efforts to harness globalization by boosting its process of opening-up through further economic reform.

While China did far better overall than the US, both of the world's two largest economies' scores were brought down by the high taxes their governments impose on corporate "repatriating" overseas profits, according to the study. UHY explained that these taxes reduce the incentive for businesses to set up overseas subsidiaries, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises for whom the costs of setting up international operations would be proportionately more expensive.

Less than half of the 27 countries in the study imposed no tax on repatriated dividends.

"American firms are often household names around the world but actually our taxation system is very poorly geared towards encouraging US companies from growing overseas, with the highest tax rate on repatriated profits of any country in the study," David noted.

Steven Zhang, managing director of New York-based Fund Tax Services LLC, however, said the survey doesn't necessarily reflect the overall competitiveness of these countries from a tax perspective.

"There's no real positive correlation between the number of double tax treaties and overall level of foreign direct investment in a particular country," Zhang noted.

"Moreover, double tax treaty tends to have the practical effect of shifting substantial amounts of tax revenues away from the developing countries," he added.

Contact the writer at yuweizhang@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 01/20/2014 page2)