Shades of grey: riskification and hedging in the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

This essay unpacks the hedging behavior of small and secondary states by focusing on Southeast Asian responses to the intense US-China rivalry and the emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) in the Indo-Pacific region. It contends that the weaker states’ perceptions of external realities are not black and white, but shades of grey, as uncertainty breeds ambiguity and ambivalence. The states often do not view a major power (and its initiatives) as either a clear-cut threat or a straightforward solution. Instead, they perceive a spectrum of risks and challenges, each with constantly changing manifestations and magnitude, all of which require complex combinations of mutually-reinforcing and counteracting measures. All ASEAN states have mixed attitudes towards the competing powers, viewing both the Quad’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategies and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as bringing not only opportunities but also risks and dangers. These ambivalent perceptions entail a process of ‘riskification’, where states identify and prioritize certain risks while downplaying others, in ways that serve elite interests at home. Hence, while nearly all the ASEAN states have stressed in varying degrees the risks of entrapment, abandonment, polarization and marginalization, many have downplayed the dangers of big-power aggressiveness and interference, some more so than others. The varying riskification patterns thus lead to varying hedging acts, prompting subtly different responses to the emerging realities.

KEYWORDS:

• Riskification
• weaker-state hedging
• Southeast Asia
• US–China rivalry
• Indo-Pacific

Acknowledgements

I thank Alice D. Ba, Paul Evans, Fong Chin Wei, Lai-Ha Chan, Pak K. Lee, John Ciorciari, Jurgen Haacke, David Han, Yee Kuang Heng, Ann Marie Murphy, Belaetham Kalimuthu, Bunn Negara, Mahmud Ali, Ilango Karuppannan, Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, Zakaria Haji Ahmad, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and input during the various stages of writing this paper. I also thank Zikri Rosli and Fikry A. Rahman for their superb research assistance. The usual caveats apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by UKM Research Grant No. GP-2020-K007581.

Notes on contributors

Cheng-Chwee Kuik

Cheng-Chwee Kuik is Professor in International Relations and Head of the Centre for Asian Studies, Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), National University of Malaysia (UKM). He is concurrently a Non-resident Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Kuik's research focuses on smaller states' alignment behavior, ASEAN-based multilateralism, and Asian security. He served as Head of the Writing Team for the Government of Malaysia's inaugural Defence White Paper (2020). Cheng-Chwee is guest editor of the Special Issue on “Southeast Asian Responses to China's Belt and Road Initiative” (Asian Perspective, Spring and Fall 2021), co-author (with David M. Lampton and Selina Ho) of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (2020), and co-editor (with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo) of Institutionalizing East Asia (2016). His current projects include: hedging in international relations, elite legitimation and foreign policy choices, and the geopolitics of infrastructure connectivity cooperation.