linguistic:translation, linguistic:paraphrasing
Beyond China (PRC)

Teng became popular in Japan and Southeast Asia, and to some extent, South Asia, achieving a "cult status" in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and Japan, where she became a "barometer of cross-strait relations" in rising geopolitical tensions at the time, and one of the first artists to break through linguistic and cultural barriers, garnering recognition and acclaim from cultures across much of the region that had previously been confined to national borders. Her songs have been covered by several hundreds of singers all over the world; by artists like Faye Wong, Leslie Cheung, Jon Bon Jovi, Siti Nurhaliza, Shila Amzah, Katherine Jenkins, Im Yoon-ah, David Archuleta, Agnez Mo, Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, English vocal group Libera, Jewish singer Noa, Grammy Award-winning American musician Kenny G, Kiwi pianist Carl Doy, Cuba's leading a cappella musical band Vocal Sampling, among others. Her songs are also featured in various international films, such as Rush Hour 2, The Game, Prison On Fire, Year of the Dragon, Formosa Betrayed, Gomorrah, Crazy Rich Asians, and the Disney + TV series American Born Chinese.

In 1974, Teng entered the Japanese market, two years after Japan severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan. She was extremely popular in Japan throughout the 1970s and 1980s, having lived off her royalties in the country after semi-retiring in the late '80s. During this tenure, Teng recorded and performed Japanese pop songs, often termed as kayokyoku by Japanese media, and helped connect Japan to much of East Asia, particularly Taiwan, China, and some of Southeast Asia, helping bridge the gap between them, some of which were later covered in Mandarin, as reported by Nippon.

Hirano Kumiko, an author at Nippon writes:

For Japanese, Teresa Teng was more than just a popular singer. By performing kayōkyoku, she connected Japan to its Asian neighbors. She taught us about the profundity of Chinese culture, whether in her birthplace of Taiwan, her ancestral home of China, or Hong Kong, which she loved throughout her life. We, her Japanese fans, will never forget her velvety voice and the brief, beautiful radiance of her life.

In 2007, Teng was inducted into the "Popular Music Hall of Fame" at the Koga Masao Music Museum in Japan, making her the only non-Japanese national to do so. In 2015, on an occasion to commemorate the 20th death anniversary of the singer, Akira Tada from Nikkei Asia wrote, "Asia has undergone significant changes in the past 20 years, with the flow of people, goods, and information having increased considerably. At the same time, new political frictions have developed. Teng, who continues to be loved across national and ethnic boundaries, still shines as a voice uniting Asia through song." In 2018, The Guardian wrote, "In 20th-century pop music, the voice of Elvis Presley is as iconic and identifiable in the west as that of Teresa Teng is in the east." Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt described her as "a model of inter-Asian modernity whose voice crossed linguistic, national and generational borders", whereas John F. Copper called her "the most heard singer in the world ever" during her time.