An Analysis Of Hedging Behavior Of East Asian Countries From The Perspective Of Role Conflict

What kind of strategic choices small and medium-sized countries will make in the face of rising powers is an important direction of international relations research."Balance" and"following" are key concepts that many scholars have studied.However,a careful study of the policies adopted by small and medium-sized East Asian countries between China and the United States will reveal that checks and balances and following are not the only optimal solutions for countries.The security strategies of these countries can be summarized as hedging strategies.However,the small and medium-sized countries in East Asia did not explicitly choose a party,but generally adopted a strategy of hedging,which is neither excessively rejected nor completely followed,under the premise of huge differences in national conditions.This deep-seated reason is worth exploring.The research done in this thesis is trying to explain the generation mechanism of hedging behavior in East Asian countries from the perspective of role conflict.The difficulty of this paper is also here:how to construct the inner link between role conflict and hedge generation mechanism?Role conflicts arise from the inconsistency between internal and external needs and cognition.Therefore,the key to solving role conflicts lies in changing one’s own role concept or moderately revising or even changing other’s role expectations.Inspired by Stephen Walker’s theorizing of the interconstruction process of agents and structures,in which he explained how conflicting roles coexist and how to resolve role conflicts,this thesis constructs the framework that there is inconsistency between the role expectations of others and generating role conflicts,and resolving role conflicts through role alternation and role transformation,then hedging behavior is generated.At the same time,from the perspectives of geography,national strength,and existing research materials,the thesis selects South Korea’s cases in responding to the THAAD deployment and the DPRK nuclear crisis,and Singapore’s response to the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP)and the Belt and Road Initiative.Small and medium-sized East Asian countries use role alternation and role transformation to hedge between China and the United States for diplomatic space,that is,take the role that China needs in the face of China,and the role that the United States needs in the face of the United States.The other way is jump out of the dual interaction between China and the United States in an active way structure,and advocate community or trilateral relations to transform the role positioning and expectations of China and the United States,so as to realize the role of "both right and left" in the Sino-US interaction structure,and promote the formation of national hedging strategies.Combined with the analysis of the hedging strategy formulation and implementation mechanism of East Asian countries will help to deepen the understanding of the theory of hedging strategy,and also help to enrich the connotation of hedging as an academic concept.Which can build bridges between alternation and role switching and the generation mechanism of hedging.In addition,while fully recognizing the strategic autonomy of neighboring countries,we can understand the strategic tendencies and selection mechanisms of East Asian countries in the power transfer between China and the United States,and realize that the role conflicts faced by East Asian countries are also divided into strong and weak.There are also differences in the degree of strategies,and it may be difficult to form a synergy in specific implementation.China should treat these countries differently,and properly link or decouple their relations with China and China-US relations,which will help foreign policy to be more effective and accurate that provides new ideas for the development of the power structure situation in East Asia.