Description
Hedging is a popular, but contested, concept for understanding the rhetoric and behavior or states in the Asia-Pacific amid the deepening US-China competition. But what precisely is hedging and how are Asian states hedging? To unpack this concept, I disaggregate foreign policy orientations of states based on two dimensions: (1) the focus of their strategy—risks versus threats; and (2) the mode of their strategy—management versus insurance. On the former, risks refer to the state’s potential for loss (given a threat), while threats indicate the likelihood of harm or exploitation, based on the capabilities and intentions of another state. On the latter, management entails actions to mitigate vulnerability, whereas insurance signifies actions to secure against a possible contingency. Using this framework, I identify three varieties of hedgers—entrepreneurs, shirkers, and opportunists—and distinguish them from a commonly conflated group: balancers. To illustrate empirically, I compare three hedgers: (1) Malaysia the entrepreneur; (2) India the shirker; and (3) South Korea the opportunist. The qualitative variations in their hedging behavior demonstrate the nature and scope of foreign policy innovation among Asian states in the shadow of great power competition.
