Great Powers and Strategic Hedging: The Case of Chinese Energy Security Strategy

摘要: We present the strategic hedging framework as a structural theory of interstate competition. Strategic extends logic traditional balance power in order to account for wider range foreign policy behavior, while maintaining strong emphasis on incentives that critics found lacking soft balancing approach. provide four-step identification mechanism allows analyst spot potential cases and then filter out behavior is better categorized hard balancing, normal diplomatic friction, or simple maximization. use case Chinese energy security strategy an illustrative study employ demonstrate its viability example hedging. Given importance within context Sino-American relations, this paper not only contributes development new international it presents interpretation important issue.