Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
From the Issue
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2015About Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
For over twenty years, KEI has sponsored annual major academic symposiums at universities across the country and major academic conferences. Each year, papers are specially commissioned to fit panel topics of current policy relevance to the U.S.-ROK alliance and implications for the Korean peninsula. Following the symposium, KEI edits and publishes those papers in an annual volume entitled “Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies.”
Author: Cheng-Chwee Kuik
Region: Asia
Theme: Foreign Relations, Security
Location: Korea, South, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
Published February 26, 2016
Download PDFThis chapter compares the foreign policy responses of three “core” ASEAN states—Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore—vis-à-vis an assertive China and a rebalancing America.1 The weaker states have all pursued a hedging approach, not taking sides and adopting contradictory policies aimed at keeping a fallback position. There are subtle, but crucial, variations in their responses—different degrees and forms of their fallback-maintenance efforts, i.e., the military, political, and economic measures seeking to mitigate the risks of uncertainty. Indonesia and Singapore have persistently demonstrated a greater readiness than Malaysia to cultivate political and military options to hedge against the uncertainty surrounding China’s rise, but with varying attitudes about America’s countervailing role.