Overview of Research Interests
My research lies primarily in international security and cooperation, with a regional focus on the Asia-Pacific. I am particularly interested in examining the pattern of security cooperation between great powers and secondary states and drawing out the implications for regional order, stability, and the US grand strategy. My aim is to develop new IR theories and datasets that capture empirical complexities of the region and provide insights to academic and policy audiences interested in Asia-Pacific security.
Book Manuscript in Preparation
Goldilocks’ Signal for Security Cooperation in East Asia: China’s Rise, Hedging, and Joint Military Exercises
My current book project sheds light on joint military exercises as an indicator of security cooperation and explores how East Asian secondary states are responding to the rise of China and why they are responding the way they are. I theorize that the secondary states are hedging – pursuing cooperative security ties with both the traditional great power patron, the US, and its powerful neighbor, China – and the hedging behavior is a function of states’ desire for strategic autonomy. Cooperative relational ties with other states are important social capital that increases a state’s security and facilitates strategic autonomy. Hence, opting for a rigid single-sided alignment with a single power or bloc is the second-best strategy at best, and secondary states’ optimal strategy is to diversify security ties. This theory is put under empirical scrutiny against an original dataset of joint military exercises (JMEs) in the Asia-Pacific from 1970 to 2019 (1,447 exercises). A systematic examination of the JME data using longitudinal network analyses and in-depth case studies reveals that secondary states in the region who would be ‘most likely’ to balance against rising China based on our conventional wisdom – states with major territorial conflicts with China, junior allies and strategic partners of the US, and democracies – have expanded security cooperation with Beijing over the last twenty years. The findings suggest that the regional countries have made efforts to embrace China into the regional network over time rather than isolating it, and hedging is much more pervasive and a preferred strategy than we think.
My research lies primarily in international security and cooperation, with a regional focus on the Asia-Pacific. I am particularly interested in examining the pattern of security cooperation between great powers and secondary states and drawing out the implications for regional order, stability, and the US grand strategy. My aim is to develop new IR theories and datasets that capture empirical complexities of the region and provide insights to academic and policy audiences interested in Asia-Pacific security.
Book Manuscript in Preparation
Goldilocks’ Signal for Security Cooperation in East Asia: China’s Rise, Hedging, and Joint Military Exercises
My current book project sheds light on joint military exercises as an indicator of security cooperation and explores how East Asian secondary states are responding to the rise of China and why they are responding the way they are. I theorize that the secondary states are hedging – pursuing cooperative security ties with both the traditional great power patron, the US, and its powerful neighbor, China – and the hedging behavior is a function of states’ desire for strategic autonomy. Cooperative relational ties with other states are important social capital that increases a state’s security and facilitates strategic autonomy. Hence, opting for a rigid single-sided alignment with a single power or bloc is the second-best strategy at best, and secondary states’ optimal strategy is to diversify security ties. This theory is put under empirical scrutiny against an original dataset of joint military exercises (JMEs) in the Asia-Pacific from 1970 to 2019 (1,447 exercises). A systematic examination of the JME data using longitudinal network analyses and in-depth case studies reveals that secondary states in the region who would be ‘most likely’ to balance against rising China based on our conventional wisdom – states with major territorial conflicts with China, junior allies and strategic partners of the US, and democracies – have expanded security cooperation with Beijing over the last twenty years. The findings suggest that the regional countries have made efforts to embrace China into the regional network over time rather than isolating it, and hedging is much more pervasive and a preferred strategy than we think.
