Faced with US-China rivalry and an uncertain future even beyond Donald Trump’s presidency, middle powers are building fluid coalitions and partnerships to hedge against American and wider unpredictability, according to a leading Southeast Asian affairs scholar.
Traditional US allies are asserting greater autonomy and forming their own networks to hedge against risks – a shift that is creating openings for smaller neutral states to further diversify their partnerships, while mitigating the danger of picking sides in the US-China competition, according to Kuik Cheng-Chwee, professor of international relations at the National University of Malaysia.
“‘Middle-power realignments’ and ‘multi-layered coalitions across sectors’ are the key [phases] we’re going to see more and more,” Kuik said at a talk on Wednesday organised by the social science faculty at the University of Hong Kong. “Such coalitions are partially overlapped, fragmented and fluid. Every partner you’re collaborating with will continuously adapt and adjust their policy.”
He added that such fragmented coalitions were about pursuing concurrent networks of cooperative partnerships in alignment with more than one power across various domains.
Alignment is a partnership with a deep convergence of interests, institutionalised consultation and “some degree of compatibility-enhancement coordination”, according to Kuik.
The catalyst is uncomfortable but unavoidable: the US may not return to business as usual even after Trump leaves office.
