asia-pacific

The rise of China as a major power is one of the most significant developments in global politics in the 21st century. As a result, this has sparked concerns from the United States and Southeast Asian countries. In response, Washington has implemented its grand strategy to enhance deterrence and maintain the balance of power in Asia through the "Pivot to Asia" and "Indo-Pacific" strategies. Chinese leadership, on the other hand, views these American strategies as intensifying the security dilemma in the region, which not only increases the likelihood of direct confrontation, but also poses a serious challenge to China's growth trajectory.Given the current situation and China's desire for economic development and strategic engagement with Washington, the question is “What strategy should Beijing adopt to avoid being harmed by pressure from the United States and its allies in Southeast Asia?” China's actions suggest that it has adopted what is known as a "hedging" strategy to secure its strategic interests while avoiding confrontation with the US. Indeed, it seeks to foster its development by leveraging its strategic engagement with the US. In other words, Beijing has endeavored to respond decisively but with strategic caution, to avoid conflict with the US, prevent anti-balancing coalitions (by Southeast Asian countries), and ensure the continuation of its power growth.The hedging strategy is a thoughtful approach that manifests as a cautious response to risks in a constructive, peaceful, and non-confrontational manner. It closely aligns with Beijing's peaceful diplomacy in the region, aimed at maximizing benefits and minimizing threats. In general, China's hedging strategy is based on two pillars: first, reassuring its surrounding environment (Southeast Asia) regarding the benign consequences of Beijing's growing power; and second, indirectly balancing the US through soft competition.

The article's hypothesis is examined through a descriptive-analytical method and involves two main variables: First, the independent variable, which includes the "Pivot to Asia" strategy—a form of rebalancing by the United States against China—and the "Indo-Pacific" strategy, which represents an aggressive policy by the United States towards China. Second, the dependent variable is China's hedging strategy.

The relationship between China and the United States, as two major powers, has ranged from cooperation to competition over the past two decades. Throughout this period, Chinese political leaders (from the second generation of leadership to the present) have sought to secure their interests and respond to threats by addressing structural and domestic factors. In essence, China's foreign policy has been based on economic growth aimed at peaceful development and strategic caution in the face of security risks. This approach has enabled Beijing to take steady steps towards continued economic growth and, in parallel, enhance and stabilize its power in the region as it entered the new millennium.In the meantime, China's increasing role in Asia and its high potential to become a hegemon prompted the United States to operationalize its strategy to enhance deterrence and contain Beijing through the "Pivot to Asia" and "Indo-Pacific" strategies. In response, Beijing adopted the hedging strategy as its Asian policy.

Beijing's hedging strategy is structured in two layers. The initial layer itself has two dimensions. The first pertains to the mutual dependency between Beijing and the United States, which China seeks to maintain and exploit to sustain its power growth. The second relates to China's growing security concerns regarding threats from the US, which may lead to a confrontation. These considerations have driven China to manage its relations carefully and avoid geopolitical competition with the US. The subsequent layer concerns Beijing's response to US actions in its surrounding environment, namely Southeast Asia. In this regard, Beijing has attempted to overcome challenges posed by the US by adopting a "reassurance approach" to weaken any coalitions against China.

China's rapid economic growth is attributed to an efficient national strategy, resulting in an average doubling of its GDP every eight years. Currently, China is the largest trading partner of the United States, being the largest source of imports and the third-largest US export market. China's rise over the past two decades has significantly impacted global politics. The increasing tension between the United States and China is reminiscent of the rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. This tension is due to geopolitical and ideological competition between the two countries. Given the significance of the Asia-Pacific region in geopolitical trends, this article aims to examine the geopolitical underpinnings of the competition between the United States and China in the region using descriptive and analytical methods and available resources. The findings indicate that the United States and its allies are attempting to constrain and challenge China as a major power with influence over regional and global processes on the maritime geostrategic front. China is employing various geopolitical strategies to challenge the US and its Western allies and break the chain of US allies surrounding it. This is in an effort to expand its influence beyond its borders.

southeast asia is one of the geostrategic and geoeconomic regions of the world which has experienced considerable growth after the end of the cold war. one of the drivers of this growth is the asean organization. initially developed to prevent the growth of communism in the region, the organization gradually extended its membership to the region by adopting new members. one of the major trends of the asean in recent decades is the growing competition between china and the united states. china, because of its historic neighborhood and socio-cultural ties, and the united states, are also seeking to expand its regional influence, dominate southeast asia as the core of the asia-pacific region. the intensification of the rivalry has caused the residents of the region to have a high level of tolerance. the restructuring of shared norms such as regional disparities and the use of peaceful means to resolve the crisis in the form of asean is one of the main reasons for this tolerance. in this research, we will answer the question that how is the asean approach towards the competition between china and the united states in southeast asia? in response to this question, we proposed that the asean member countries, by adopting a collective approach in the form of asean mechanisms in the form of peaceful mechanisms, the use of peaceful means, keeping the asean centrality and using other regional and trans-regional powers, seeks to balance and benefit from this competition.

True understanuing of U.S. Pivot to Asia-Pacific as the most powerful world country with its vast geopolitical coverage in the region is of high importance. To study the consequence of the confluence of U.S. Rebalance and the fragile balance of power in Asia-Pacific, the article is trying to answer this question: How the balance of power in the region could change within the next decade? Unique charachtristics of the region, increasing its importance, made U.S. change its strategy from Atlantic to Pacific, aiming to maintain its dominance over Asia-Pacific. There are some ambiguities on the pivot, its inception, priorities and components, and this article offering documents, findings, descriptions and explanations tries to reduce the ambiguities. As per findings, the pivot has caused a change in China’s behaviour as a regional power within the last two decades and therefore the current turbulence in the regional balance of power strenghthened by One Belt- One Road initiative (OBOR) and Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy to deepen control in indopacific, challenging U.S. supremacy and disarranging regional balance of power in favor of Beijing is being analyzed. This research involves descriptive – analytical research methodology within the framework of a library research process.

In recent years, the South China Sea has become one of the major centers of the crisis in the Asian Pacific region. This paper examines the geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-strategic positions of the South China Sea, contradictory claims by the contenders in the South China Sea and various solutions to this problem, including multilateral negotiations and cooperation. With an analytical descriptive method, the paper seeks to answer the question of how the policies of the claiming countries in the South China Sea can be evaluated in relation to each other  and considering the geopolitical situation and developments in the region? Based on a geopolitical approach,We find that each of the regional and trans-regional actors seeks to control important resources and regions.As a result, the situation in the region, especially with the geopolitical developments and the growing economic and military growth of China and the efforts of countries to develop energy resources without regard to the rights of others, can lead to increased complexity in the region and continued conflict.