Spatiotemporal evolution of hedging effects in Asia-Pacific countries amid Sino-US competition: Insights from massive event data

Facing the pressure of Sino-US strategic competition, countries in the Asia-Pacific region often adopt hedging strategies to minimize risk and protect their interests. If implemented, these strategies could impact relationships between countries and lead to political instability. Owing to a lack of...

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Published in:PloS one Vol. 20; no. 1; p. e0317308
Main Authors: Hu, Qiyue, Yuan, Lihua, Liu, Bin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 15.01.2025
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
21st century
Asia
China
Cold War
Competition
Discourse analysis
Earth Sciences
Economic aspects
Economic research
Evaluation
Foreign policy
Geopolitics
Hedging (Finance)
Humans
International aspects
International competition (Commerce)
International Cooperation
International relations
Methods
People and places
Politics
Pressure effects
Risk reduction
Social Sciences
Spatio-Temporal Analysis
Sustainable development
Third party
United States
Asia
United States
China
Pacific Rim
Southeast Asia
United States > US
Asia-Pacific region
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics > USSR
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Facing the pressure of Sino-US strategic competition, countries in the Asia-Pacific region often adopt hedging strategies to minimize risk and protect their interests. If implemented, these strategies could impact relationships between countries and lead to political instability. Owing to a lack of theoretical evaluation frameworks and methods, few studies have examined the implementation effects of hedging strategies adopted by Asia-Pacific countries amid Sino-US competition. This study proposes a novel four-quadrant evaluation theoretical framework, and constructs a Geopolitical Relation Index and a Comparative Relation Index based on the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone massive event data. Since 2000, the effects of hedging strategies in 19 Asia-Pacific countries against China and the US have been dynamically quantified. The research reveals that Asia-Pacific countries’ dynamic performances over 24 years can be categorized into three groups: significantly closer to China, significantly closer to the US, and swinging. Since implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, countries close to China have deepened their ties, while those aligned with the US have strengthened their ties. Asia-Pacific countries have demonstrated similar characteristics from Obama’s presidency to Biden’s presidency. The results contribute to the dynamic assessment and ongoing monitoring of the execution effects of Asia-Pacific countries’ diplomatic strategies towards China and the US, offering valuable insights for timely refinement of their foreign policies.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0317308