In an alternative history, a non ccp China would be close to the US just like India and their dispora would be competitive with India's. But due to the ccp baggage, the Chinese influence is much weaker.
If you limit your view to the Western world of the last 20-30 years everything the author says about the Indian diaspora and the comparison is correct. But then the "in history" needs to be removed from the headline.
Similarly the Economist's comparison of 18M Indian migrants vs 10M Chinese in the world today doesn't really tell the whole story - by most accounts there are 40M+ overseas Chinese scattered across the globe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese
Ultimately PRC would take increased Chinese (as in the country) global influence, by simply being 5x the size of India because "CCP baggage" allowed her to transfer, retain and coordinate more domestic talent, over increased Chinese diasphora influence in the US anyday. Functionally, CCP baggage didn't prevent plurality of foreign students being from PRC (again because 5x richer), which translates to knowledge flow back to PRC. Recent NBER study on Indian brain drain to US had some crazy figures like 90% of top 10, 60% of top 1000, 36% of top 100 Indian IIT rankers gets brain drained to US. That may be good for Indian influence in the US, but not for India. Meanwhile ethnically Chinese talent is flowing back to PRC because >4% of US being Chinese = not enough political power to prevent another red scare regardless.
What's more benefitial for PRC, diasphora that also makes PRC stronger or diasphora that exclusively makes US stronger. It's the former. PRC extracts more benefits from diasphora with a few decades of successfully lobbying the much more influential US business interests.
The Chinese diplomacy is very very good and hard working. Their diplomats are constantly travelling and that includes both major and small countries.
Actually, now that I think about it, with the raw number of people speaking every language, you may be exactly right! I've been thinking in terms of percentages (x% of the population speaks y language, so it's probably not language that's the binding factor), but with India's sheer size, just the raw population (that x% might be 300 million people), it doesn't matter!
Due to the "cpp baggage" China is big, influential and has much higher domestic level of life than India.
Why do you think so many Indians are leaving the country? Have you ever been to India?
If you compare China to its direct neighbour with a similar population, India, you clearly see that they were far more adept at developing their economy. There is a reason the article focus on the diaspora. That’s because the situation inside the country is not that rosy.
I think American have a very biased view of China due to the strong anti-Chinese propaganda going on in your media.
Whatever the CCP's effect on Chinese domestic life, their authoritarianism and Uyghur genocode have made China incredibly unpopular among the voters in the world's strongest economies, especially the US.
In fact, they're driving Western companies from China to India, which will hugely decrease their global influence.
"Uyghur genocide" is a kind of scarecrow that US invents every time when it prepares to destroy an opponent. If a country possesses large deposits of oil (Iraq, Libya) there would be one kind of scarecrow to justify bombing. If the country becomes too influential and threatens US hegemony, there would be another kind of scarecrow.
The only thing that is these libels tell: USA is preparing to attack the country and they need a justification for further bombing.
E.g. I'm 90% sure USA is preparing to start a proxy war with China using Taiwan as pretext and cannon fodder. Just like the war in Ukraine which is actually war between USA and Russia.
They are either less willing to integrate into the US due to the their ccp upgringing, or more prone to be targeted to be purged(see the recent trump purge of the Chinese scientists), or more prone to actual go back and work with the ccp again.
In contrast, the Indians are much closer to the US society, many Indians actually thinks that the US is just a better and richer version of India(source my Indian friends).
But if you compare PRC with for instance Taiwan/ROC, it’s clear that China could have been much more powerful and influential than they are today if they hadn’t been so distracted by disastrous communist ideology/fantasy. They had a chance at becoming the number one superpower, but they blew it.