Hedging Strategies in Southeast Asia
Hedging Strategies in Southeast Asia

Author: Alfred Gerstl

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-08

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000605361

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Introducing a re-conceptualized comprehensive hedging framework, this book analyses the relations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam with China in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the South China Sea dispute. The author argues that ASEAN and the three Southeast Asian governments pursue a hedging strategy towards the rising China. Hedging expands the strategic options of smaller powers which are in Neorealism often restricted to bandwagoning and balancing. A hedging strategy, however, can simultaneously contain both elements of bandwagoning (e.g., in economics) and balancing (e.g., in security affairs). Even though the four hedging strategies and their implementation vary, in principle they all seek closer economic relations with Beijing, while maintaining strong security relations with Washington. A major innovation of the new hedging concept is the inclusion of the perceptions of the hedger on the risks and opportunities stemming from the relations with the hedging target and of the strategic value of potential hedging partners. The comprehensive hedging concept and the important empirical findings will be of interest to researchers in the fields of International Relations, Security, Political Geography, Economics, History, and Asian Studies.

Meeting the China Challenge
Meeting the China Challenge

Author: Evelyn Goh

Publisher: East-West Center

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13:

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In East Asia, the United States is often acknowledged as a key determinant of stability given its military presence and role as a security guarantor. In the post-Cold War period, regional uncertainties about the potential dangers attending a rising China have led some analysts to conclude that almost all Southeast Asian states now see the United States as the critical balancing force. In contrast, based on case studies of Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam, this study argues that key states in the region do not perceive themselves as having the stark choices of either balancing against or bandwagoning with China. Instead, they pursue hedging strategies that comprise three elements: indirect balancing, which mainly involves persuading the United States to act as counterweight to Chinese regional influence; complex engagement of China at the political, economic, and strategic levels, with the hope that Chinese leaders may be socialized into conduct that abides by international norms; and a more general policy of enmeshing a number of regional great powers in order to give them a stake in a stable regional order. The study also investigates each state?s perceptions of the American role in regional security and discusses how they operationalize their hedging policies against a potential U.S. drawdown in the region, as well as the different degrees to which they use their relationships with the United States as a hedge against potential Chinese domination. Finally, it discusses these states? expectations of what the United States should do to help in their hedging strategies toward China, suggesting a range of policies that span the military as well as political, diplomatic, and economic realms. This is the sixteenth publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.

Under Beijing's Shadow
Under Beijing's Shadow

Author: Murray Hiebert

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-08-15

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 1442281405

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China’s rise and stepped-up involvement in Southeast Asia have prompted a blend of anticipation and unease among its smaller neighbors. The stunning growth of China has yanked up the region’s economies, but its militarization of the South China Sea and dam building on the Mekong River has nations wary about Beijing’s outsized ambitions. Southeast Asians long felt relatively secure, relying on the United States as a security hedge, but that confidence began to slip after the Trump administration launched a trade war with China and questioned the usefulness of traditional alliances. This compelling book provides a snapshot of ten countries in Southeast Asia by exploring their diverse experiences with China and how this impacts their perceptions of Beijing’s actions and its long-term political, economic, military, and “soft power” goals in the region.

Contesting Malaysia’s Integration into the World Economy
Contesting Malaysia’s Integration into the World Economy

Author: Rajah Rasiah

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-15

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 9811606501

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This book brings together a set of incisive essays that interrogate Malaysian history and social relations which began during pre-colonial times, and extended to colonial and post-colonial Malaysia. It addresses economic misinterpretations of the role of markets in the way colonial industrialisation evolved, the nature of exploitation of workers, and the participation of local actors in shaping a wide range of socioeconomic and political processes. In doing so, it takes the lead from the innovative historian, Shaharil Talib Robert who argued that the recrafting of history should go beyond the use of conventional methodologies and analytic techniques. It is in that tradition that the chapters offer a semblance of causality, contingency, contradictions, and connections. With that, the analysis in each chapter utilises approaches appropriate for the topics chosen, which include history, anthropology, sociology, economics, politics, and international relations. The collection of chapters also offer novel interpretations to contest and fill gaps that have not been addressed in past works. The book is essential reading for history students, and those interested in Malaysian history in particular.

Security, Strategy, and Military Dynamics in the South China Sea
Security, Strategy, and Military Dynamics in the South China Sea

Author: Houlden, Gordon

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2021-07-27

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1529213460

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This volume brings together international experts to provide fresh perspectives on geopolitical concerns in the South China Sea. The book considers the interests and security strategies of each of the nations with a claim to ownership and jurisdiction in the Sea. Examining contexts including the region’s natural resources and China’s behaviour, the book also assesses the motivations and approaches of other states in Asia and further afield. This is an accessible, even-handed and comprehensive examination of current and future rivalries and challenges in one of the most strategically important and militarized maritime regions of the world.

Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China
Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China

Author: Robert S. Ross

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-06-20

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1501712764

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Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China demonstrates how structural and domestic variables influence how East Asian states adjust their strategy in light of the rise of China, including how China manages its own emerging role as a regional great power. The contributors note that the shifting regional balance of power has fueled escalating tensions in East Asia and suggest that adjustment challenges are exacerbated by the politics of policymaking. International and domestic pressures on policymaking are reflected in maritime territorial disputes and in the broader range of regional security issues created by the rise of China.Adjusting to power shifts and managing a new regional order in the face of inevitable domestic pressure, including nationalism, is a challenging process. Both the United States and China have had to adjust to China's expanded capabilities. China has sought an expanded influence in maritime East Asia; the United States has responded by consolidating its alliances and expanding its naval presence in East Asia. The region's smaller countries have also adjusted to the rise of China. They have sought greater cooperation with China, even as they try to sustain cooperation with the United States. As China continues to rise and challenge the regional security order, the contributors consider whether the region is destined to experience increased conflict and confrontation.ContributorsIan Bowers, Norwegian Defence University College and Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies Daniel W. Drezner, Tufts University, Brookings Institution, and Washington Post Taylor M. Fravel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bjørn Elias Mikalsen Grønning, Norwegian Defence University College and Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University and Chairman, Presidential Committee on Northeast Asia Cooperation Initiative, Republic of Korea James Reilly, University of Sydney Robert S. Ross, Boston College and Harvard University Randall L. Schweller, The Ohio State University ystein Tunsjø, Norwegian Defence University College and the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies Wang Dong, Peking University

The Deer and the Dragon
The Deer and the Dragon

Author: Donald K. Emmerson

Publisher: Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781931368537

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Southeast Asia is arguably the most diverse region in the world. Accordingly, rather than addressing one list of questions, the contributors to this volume have--as experts on Southeast Asia-China relations--explored the matters they see as most important and most deserving of exploration and exposure. After the editor's introduction, the chapters proceed in pairs. Each pair and a closing chapter cover a distinctive theme in Southeast Asia's interactions with China. Featured among the historical and economic contexts needed to understand the interactions are security and development as Chinese goals and how diversified beyond China Southeast Asia's trading partners are. Southeast Asian and Chinese perceptions of each other are examined using survey research and by asking whether China views the region as its "strategic backyard." Two actual or intended expansions are analyzed: expanded Chinese sovereignty over the South China Sea and Beijing's interest in using "overseas Chinese" to expand its influence in the region. The chapters on strategies lay out the very different ways of approaching China preferred by Singapore and Indonesia. Rather than documenting the obvious inequalities of size and power between China on the one hand and Cambodia and Laos on the other, the essays on disparities show how relations with China interact with asymmetries inside these two states. Policy implications of differing distances are drawn in the pieces on how Southeast Asia's proximity to China affects the prospect of Chinese regional dominance as compared with far-off America's role and as seen through the lens of Beijing's far-flung Maritime Silk Road. A final chapter on a seventh theme features a Myanmar analyst's retrospection on myths and illusions that have arisen to cloud how that country's relations with China are interpreted, with possible implications for understanding Sino-Southeast Asian dealings with China more broadly.

Does ASEAN Matter?
Does ASEAN Matter?

Author: Marty Natalegawa

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2018-07-16

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9814786748

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Written by the highly regarded diplomat Marty Natalegawa, former ambassador and foreign minister of Indonesia, this book offers a unique insider-perspective on the present and future relevance of ASEAN. It is about ASEAN’s quest for security and prosperity in a region marked by complex dynamics of power. Namely, the interplay of relations and interests among countries — large and small — which provide the settings within which ASEAN must deliver on its much-cited leadership and centrality in the region. The book seeks to answer the following questions: How can ASEAN build upon its past contributions to the peace, security and prosperity of Southeast Asia, to the wider East Asia, the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific regions? More fundamentally and a sine qua non, how can ASEAN continue to ensure that peace, security and prosperity prevail in Southeast Asia? And, equally central, how can ASEAN become more relevant to the peoples of ASEAN, such that its contributions can be genuinely felt in making better the lives of its citizens?

Rivers of Iron
Rivers of Iron

Author: David M. Lampton

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0520976169

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What China’s infamous railway initiative can teach us about global dominance. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled what would come to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—a global development strategy involving infrastructure projects and associated financing throughout the world, including Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. While the Chinese government has framed the plan as one promoting transnational connectivity, critics and security experts see it as part of a larger strategy to achieve global dominance. Rivers of Iron examines one aspect of President Xi Jinping’s “New Era”: China’s effort to create an intercountry railway system connecting China and its seven Southeast Asian neighbors (Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). This book illuminates the political strengths and weaknesses of the plan, as well as the capacity of the impacted countries to resist, shape, and even take advantage of China’s wide-reaching actions. Using frameworks from the fields of international relations and comparative politics, the authors of Rivers of Iron seek to explain how domestic politics in these eight Asian nations shaped their varying external responses and behaviors. How does China wield power using infrastructure? Do smaller states have agency? How should we understand the role of infrastructure in broader development? Does industrial policy work? And crucially, how should competing global powers respond?