How Do Weaker States Hedge? Unpacking ASEAN states’ alignment behavior towards China

Geopolitics, Ethnic Conflicts along the Border, and Chinese Foreign Policy Changes toward Myanmar

“…8 Differentiable from balancing and bandwagoning, hedging by smaller states entail the use of an ambiguous positioning with mixed signals to both great powers, and approach both with selective deployment of power acceptance and power rejection. 9 However, how China responds to such hedging activities by smaller states in Southeast Asia is worth exploring. Specifically, we want to understand how China views its interests in Southeast Asia and how they should be protected or promoted given the intensification of competition from the United States.…”

Managing Territorial Disputes in Southeast Asia: Is There more than the South China Sea?

“…Under ASEAN, Southeast Asian states promoted the slogan of "resilience through capacity building" to describe their joint efforts to prevent foreign involvement (Anwar 2000). Even though external assurances were generally invited as part of governments' hedging strategies (Kuik 2016), at the very least they followed what a senior Thai Foreign Ministry official called "the rules of the slum," saying, "If you are so close together you must shut your ears and eyes, pretending that you don't notice what is going on next door." 5 Due to Southeast Asia's internal strategic incoherence, however, it cannot be concluded that cooperation amongst the ASEAN states was a strategy to counter hegemony and that this was the reason why serious conflict has been avoided.…”

The Philippines Confronts a Post‐American World: Geopolitical‐Domestic‐Institutional Intersections

“…Thus, it is during the Obama administration—notwithstanding its pursuit of expanded strategic partnerships, alignments, and cooperation in Southeast Asia—that Southeast Asian states also came to offer particular illustrations of “hedging strategies” involving a mix of relations designed to avoid an explicit choice between major powers in contention (see Goh, ; Jackson, ). A “peculiar mix” of engagement and reassurance components that are pursued simultaneously with more constraining options (Fiori & Passeri, , Kuik, ), hedging strategies thus require constant calibration so as to avoid the appearance of taking sides at the expense of any one and toward assuring that conciliatory and cooperative avenues remain open. Indeed, more than one author in this issue draws special attention to states' more China‐accommodating actions and developments in the last two years.…”