Abstract
The United States and China are shadowboxing each other for influence and status in the Asia Pacific. Rhetorically pulling punches but operationally throwing jabs, both are using diplomacy and military cooperation to jockey for position as the regional security order evolves. Driven by China’s ascending role in Asian security and economic affairs and the U.S. desire to maintain its position of regional preponderance, policymakers in each nation are hedging¹ their security bets about the uncertain intentions, implicitly competitive strategies, and potentially coercive policies of the other. To hedge, the United States and China are pursuing policies that, on one hand, stress engagement and integration mechanisms and, on the other, emphasize realist-style balancing in the form of external security cooperation with Asian states and national military modernization programs. Neither country is openly talking about such hedging strategies per se,especially the security balancing, but both are pursuing them with mission and dedication. U.S. and Chinese leaders regularly recite the bilateral mantra about possessing a “cooperative, constructive, and candid” relationship, even as policymakers and analysts in each nation remain deeply concerned about the other’s real strategic intentions. Such balance-of-power dynamics certainly do not drive each and every U.S. or Chinese policy action in Asia, but mutual hedging is fast becoming a core and perhaps even defining dynamic between the United States and China in the Asia-Pacific region.
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