scholarly journals Achieving a ‘Delicate Equilibrium:’ Are Southeast Asia’s Maritime States Indonesia and the Philippines Hedging China?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jose Sousa-Santos

<p>One of the prescient questions within international relations today concerns the rise of China and what strategies states should deploy in response. This is particularly pertinent in the Asia Pacific neighbourhood. Southeast Asian states especially face a perennial challenge: how to balance economic and security interests between China and the US. This thesis examines the concept of hedging as a means of understanding the strategic choices adopted by the Indonesia and the Philippines in response to rising Chinese hegemony in Asia. This thesis applies the innovative hedging model developed by Kuik to determine if Indonesia and the Philippines are hedging China and, if so, what strategies Jakarta and Manila have adopted. The application of Kuik’s model to the foreign policy strategies and behaviours of Indonesia and the Philippines has been a useful approach to determine whether these two cases are hedging China and to what degree. This thesis concludes that Indonesia and the Philippines have adopted hedging strategies comprised of micro options which are not static but fluid and dynamic. This study further demonstrates that understanding the drivers and behaviour of key Southeast Asian states and the degrees to which they are rejecting or accepting power is critical.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jose Sousa-Santos

<p>One of the prescient questions within international relations today concerns the rise of China and what strategies states should deploy in response. This is particularly pertinent in the Asia Pacific neighbourhood. Southeast Asian states especially face a perennial challenge: how to balance economic and security interests between China and the US. This thesis examines the concept of hedging as a means of understanding the strategic choices adopted by the Indonesia and the Philippines in response to rising Chinese hegemony in Asia. This thesis applies the innovative hedging model developed by Kuik to determine if Indonesia and the Philippines are hedging China and, if so, what strategies Jakarta and Manila have adopted. The application of Kuik’s model to the foreign policy strategies and behaviours of Indonesia and the Philippines has been a useful approach to determine whether these two cases are hedging China and to what degree. This thesis concludes that Indonesia and the Philippines have adopted hedging strategies comprised of micro options which are not static but fluid and dynamic. This study further demonstrates that understanding the drivers and behaviour of key Southeast Asian states and the degrees to which they are rejecting or accepting power is critical.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Syed Muhammad Saad Zaidi ◽  
Adam Saud

In contemporary times, the geo-political agenda and geo-economic strategy of the world is being dominated by the ongoing US-China hegemonic competition. Where the United States is trying to prolong the &lsquo;unipolar moment&rsquo; and deter the rise of China; China is trying to establish itself as the hegemon in the Eastern hemisphere, an alternate to the US. The entirely opposite interests of the two Great Powers have initiated a hostile confrontational competition for domination. This paper seeks to determine the future nature of the US-China relations; will history repeat itself and a bloody war be fought to determine the leader of the pack? or another prolonged Cold War will be fought, which will end when one side significantly weakens and collapses? Both dominant paradigms of International Relations, Realism and Liberalism, are used to analyze the future nature of the US-China relations.


Author(s):  
Timothy Doyle ◽  
Dennis Rumley

This chapter presents an overview and critical analysis of the nature of the rise of China and its geopolitical and geo-economic implications for the Indo-Pacific region. The chapter is in six parts—China’s inexorable rise; China’s reform agenda; China’s regional trade relationships; China’s Belt and Road Initiative; the South China Sea dispute; and the future for a risen China. It is argued that the Indo-Pacific concept has little if any relevance in the conduct of current or future Chinese foreign policy. Indeed, at an annual media conference in Beijing in 2018 the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, reportedly mocked the US–Australia preference for describing the Asia-Pacific region as the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as an example of attention grabbing. Rather, China has proposed a reform strategy for relations among great powers which emphasizes a more equal relationship with the US and the need for a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (02) ◽  
pp. 2040007
Author(s):  
HSIN-HSIEN WANG ◽  
SHINN-SHYR WANG ◽  
WEI-FENG TZENG

In comparison to hegemony, lesser powers usually struggle for survival between two or more great powers under state power asymmetry, a perpetual phenomenon in international politics. With the rise of China and the increasingly strengthening role of the US in the Asia-Pacific region, it is important to learn how lesser powers manage their relations with the two. To explore this issue, we propose that the strength of state power will constrain the strategies of lesser powers as they choose between the US and China. Borrowing from existing theories and ideas on strategies that include balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging, we argue that the stronger a country’s power, the more likely it will choose a balancing strategy. At the same time, the weaker the country, the more likely that it will go with bandwagoning. Regional middle powers will show varied strategy choices, as they possess a higher degree of freedom in choosing which great power to side with. To validate these arguments, we construct two indicators — differences in trade dependence on the US and China and differences in the voting score consistent with the US and China — to quantify the strategies of lesser powers toward great powers and examine whether the variable of strategies follows the expected pattern. Our analysis shows that countries in the middle of the spectrum of state power demonstrated great freedom in choosing strategies toward the two powers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Saturo Nagao

In recent times Japan and India are moving closer in the area of security. The rise of China, US strategic withdrawal from the Indian Ocean and Japan‟s increasing profile in the Asia-pacific region have contributed towards Japan‟s strong security partnership with India. In this regard this article analyses the three following questions: (1) What are the security activities that Japan has undertaken? (2) Why has Japan tried to share more security burden? (3) What can Japan-India cooperation do? Currently, Japan has enhanced its security cooperation with other US allies and friendly countries including Southeast Asian countries taking the US-China power balance into consideration. The changing security situation has pushed Japan to reconsider its security priorities. There is much scope for Japan and India to cooperate by using the linkage of East China Sea and Indo-China Border, share the burden of maritime security in the Indian Ocean region and collaborate to support countries around China in the South China Sea.


Asian Survey ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Friedman

For international relations realists, the rise of a world power changes the global distribution of power. By so doing, it redefines national interests and compels governments to rethink old policies that suddenly do not make sense. Given the rise of China, it is not surprising that some American analysts suggest a change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan ending U.S. arms sales. This article weighs the arguments for and against that policy change in the context of China’s awesome rise and of American interests in the Asia-Pacific region.


2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
VINCENT CHARLES KEATING ◽  
JAN RUZICKA

AbstractHow can trusting relationships be identified in international politics? The recent wave of scholarship on trust in International Relations answers this question by looking for one or the combination of three indicators – the incidence of cooperation; discourses expressing trust; or the calculated acceptance of vulnerability. These methods are inadequate both theoretically and empirically. Distinguishing between the concepts of trust and confidence, we instead propose an approach that focuses on the actors' hedging strategies. We argue that actors either declining to adopt or removing hedging strategies is a better indicator of a trusting relationship than the alternatives. We demonstrate the strength of our approach by showing how the existing approaches would suggest the US-Soviet relationship to be trusting when it was not so. In contrast, the US-Japanese alliance relationship allows us to show how we can identify a developing trusting relationship.


Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV

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2021 ◽  
pp. 135-153
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batyuk

Despite the critical attitude of the current American President towards his predecessor, the Trump administration actually continued the course of the Obama administration to turn the Asia-Pacific region into the most important priority of American foreign policy. Moreover, the US Asia-Pacific strategy was transformed under Trump into the Indo-Pacific strategy, when the Indian Ocean was added to the Asia-Pacific region in the US strategic thinking. The US Pacific command was renamed the Indo-Pacific command (May 2018), and the US Department of defense developed the Indo-Pacific strategy (published in June 2019). The Indo-Pacific strategy is an integral part of Trump’s national security strategy, according to which China, along with Russia, was declared US adversary. The American side complained about both the economic and military-political aspects of the Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, official Washington is no longer confident that it can cope with those adversaries, China and Russia, alone. Trying to implement the main provisions of the Indo-Pacific strategy, official Washington has staked not only on building up its military power in the Indo-Pacific, but also on trying to build an anti-Chinese system of alliances in this huge region. Along with such traditional American allies in the region as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, the American side in the recent years has made active attempts to attract India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam to this system of alliances as well. These American attempts, however, can only cause serious concerns not only in Beijing, but also in Moscow, thereby contributing to the mutual rapprochement of the Russian Federation and China. Meanwhile, the Russian-Chinese tandem is able to devalue American efforts to strategically encircle China, creating a strong Eurasian rear for the Middle Kingdom.


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