This paper examines how developmental states pursue nationalist objectives in strategic foreign asset takeovers while managing the operational demands of global markets. It advances a theory of strategic technocratic intervention, arguing that technocrats mediate between political mandates for national control and the technical and financial requirements needed to sustain production and investment. The argument is tested through a structured comparison of three foreign firms in Indonesia, Chevron, Freeport-McMoRan, and British Petroleum, whose contract renegotiations produced divergent outcomes under the same nationalist narrative. Chevron's Rokan block was transferred to a state-owned enterprise under domestic operational control; Freeport ceded majority ownership while retaining operatorship at Grasberg; and British Petroleum retained both ownership and operational control at Tangguh LNG through a long-term extension. Process tracing shows technocrats shaping these outcomes by translating nationalist goals into viable policy options, mediating among political leaders, state-owned enterprises, and foreign investors, and institutionalizing compromise through contracts and regulation. The findings demonstrate how technocrats can moderate the form and limits of resource nationalism while preserving its political symbolism. In this role, technocrats function as two-level game players, managing domestic nationalist pressures from political leaders and state-owned enterprises while simultaneously signaling institutional credibility to foreign investors and international capital markets.
This study investigates how domestic political uncertainty and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) shape Japan's diplomatic posture toward China across 456 monthly observations (1987-2024). Challenging structural realist accounts that privilege external economic forces, it introduces the Adjusted News-based Economic and Regime Opinion Polls (ANEROP) index as a measure of political uncertainty and employs a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model with GDELT-derived diplomatic tone as the outcome measure. The results show that ANEROP has significant Granger-causal effects on shifts in diplomatic tone, whereas EPU has only a marginal effect, highlighting the primacy of domestic political uncertainty in Japan's China policy. Regression discontinuity and subperiod VAR analyses identify a structural break at the 2001 Kantei centralization reform, after which political uncertainty becomes an active driver of diplomatic recalibration. These findings contribute to a domestic-institutional approach to foreign policy analysis by showing how institutional centralization conditions the foreign policy effects of domestic political uncertainty.
Alignment orientation has become a defining challenge for middle-power states. The strategic competition between the USA and China places Japan in a central dilemma: securing national defense through the US alliance while sustaining economic prosperity through interdependence with China. We argue that the mass public's alignment orientation under power transition is driven by conditional recognition of regional hierarchy filtered through dominance-oriented dispositions. Using an online survey from January 2024, we show that Social Dominance Orientation conditions how individuals interpret perceived Chinese influence and shapes their relative preferences over improving relations with China versus the USA, particularly when regional hierarchy appears unsettled rather than consolidated. Cultural similarity with China is the significant predictor of support for economic engagement, highlighting the domain-specific role of identity. Our robustness checks show that the core results remain stable across alternative specifications. The study reframes US-China dynamics as a contest over regional hierarchy and demonstrates how hierarchy preferences shape alignment adjustment under contested power.
This article examines how government officials in Malaysia and Indonesia deploy public discourse to manage the risks of intensifying US-China technological rivalry. It conceptualizes technological neutrality as a discursive hedging strategy through which officials present technology policy as impartial to carve out agency amid external pressures and technological lock-in. Drawing on official statements and semi-structured interviews, the study demonstrates that discursive strategies are central to the risk mitigation strategies of secondary states in a contested technological order. While both countries draw on ASEAN's discursive repertoire of neutrality, they mobilize it in distinct ways. In Malaysia, neutrality is explicitly articulated to de-securitize economic interdependence and maintain flexibility in technology partnerships, while in Indonesia it remains implicit, embedded within doctrines of non-alignment and the "free and active" foreign-policy tradition. By showing that discursive strategies are constitutive of hedging, the article advances IR debates on secondary-state agency amid great power technological rivalry.
The institutional design of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), established by China, follows best practices for multilateral development banks, thereby challenging the widely held assumption that domestic regime types affect institutional outcomes. Through qualitative content analysis and process tracing, this article argues that China's design choices for the AIIB nevertheless reflect domestic political needs. To enhance the bank's reputation, China made concessions during negotiations in order to secure membership from various European countries. Yet China preserved flexibility by leaving room for reforms of the AIIB in the longer term. These institutional design outcomes stem from China's strategic goal of gaining status, which is rooted in its domestic political needs of demonstrating regime legitimacy and achievement. The case of the AIIB suggests that long-term strategic advantages can override short-term institutional concessions, and that authoritarian states may adopt liberal institutional designs in response to demands from democracies when doing so serves broader strategic objectives.
Asia-Pacific states are navigating significant geoeconomic and geopolitical transformations amid an increasingly multipolar international system, characterized by diverse and alternative modernities. These global and regional shifts generate instability, unpredictability, and geopolitical anxiety, fostering heightened ontological insecurity. This article engages with key debates in ontological security studies, including the relationship between ontological security and the continuity or change of routines and narratives, the triggers of insecurity from significant others and disruptive events, and the need for adaptation to new environments. By addressing these issues, we expand the research programme of ontological security studies and open new avenues for theoretical inquiry. We argue that ontological security should be understood as complementary to, rather than a substitute for, rational choice approaches. This perspective emphasizes the interplay between physical and ontological security, highlighting their complementarity as a crucial focus for future research.
This article employs the ontological security framework to analyse China's identity-related concerns in two structurally different contexts-Tibet as an internal region and Taiwan as an external entity. The central puzzle is why China experiences similar ontological insecurities (OISs) in both cases yet relies on divergent identity-restorative behaviours, thereby testing the adaptability of Essen and Danielson's typology. Using their mechanisms of inadequacy and distrust of self and others, the study shows that China's OIS is triggered by competing identity narratives-ethno-nationalism in Tibet and civic-democratic nationalism in Taiwan, each reinforced by historical trauma and case-specific events. China counters these challenges through differentiated security-seeking behaviours-assimilationist and ideological strategies in Tibet, and cultural and diplomatic engagement in Taiwan. External actors further activate OIS-India in the Tibet case and USA in Taiwan-thereby producing normalization routines in Tibet and competitive routines in Taiwan.
While how ontological insecurity has served as the foundation for the People's Republic of China's (PRC) irredentism toward Taiwan and the South-China Sea have been described, it remains unclear how it was produced in a way that it could serve these functions. To this lacuna, this paper investigates the production, transformation, and weaponization of ontological insecurity in the PRC by reconstructing a genealogy of China's sovereignty and re-interpret the transition of the self of the Chinese states. The paper thus argues that, first, the self of the modern Chinese states is produced based on the ontological insecurity of the Chinese empire, which understood itself to be a universal empire. Second, such a self of modern Chinese state experienced another ontological insecurity from World War I to the end of World War II. Third, based on this, the CCP's ascension weaponises this ontological insecurity.
This paper examines North Korea's ontological insecurity following the breakdown of the Hanoi Summit in February 2019, a critical situation that precipitated a significant shift in its foreign policy and military strategy. We argue that the failure of the summit disrupted North Korea's self-identity and diplomatic routines, leading to an escalation in military provocations, a retreat into self-sufficiency and a redefinition of its position toward South Korea. By employing the framework of ontological security theory, we analyse how North Korea's foreign policy evolved from a previous routine of limited provocation and negotiations with the United States and South Korea to a more aggressive stance characterised by an accelerated nuclear weapons program and heightened hostility. We also explore the implications of this shift for regional security dynamics and the challenges posed to international diplomacy. Ultimately, we contend that understanding North Korea's actions through the lens of ontological insecurity reveals deeper motivations beyond traditional security concerns, offering new insights into the complexities of its nuclear ambitions and foreign relations.
This article examines how the concept of ontological insecurity has shaped India's foreign policy in the context of its regional and global engagements. Specifically, it explores how India's narratives of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (One Earth, One Family, One Future) and Vishwa Guru (World Leader) have emerged as strategic tools to address identity-based challenges, particularly those posed by China's growing influence and revisionist policies. By analyzing critical events such as the Doklam standoff, China's Belt and Road Initiative, and the Galwan Valley clashes, the article argues that India's foreign policy reflects an attempt to manage disruptions to its ontological security. Through these frameworks, India projects itself as a moral and cultural leader, utilizing identity-anchoring strategies to navigate threats and assert leadership in the Global South and Indo-Pacific. The article also critiques the interplay between India's ontological insecurity and its evolving foreign policy routines, including its engagement with minilateral bodies like the Quad, as well as its focus on cultural diplomacy during events such as the G20 Summit. This analysis provides a notional contribution to understanding how ontological insecurity shapes state behavior, particularly in the Asia-Pacific. It underscores India's strategic responses to external disruptions to its identity, offering insights into the broader implications of ontological security for International Relations theory and practice.
The 2014 oilrig crisis marks a turning point in Vietnam's policy towards China in the South China Sea. Applying securitization theory from the Copenhagen School, this article argues that Vietnam publicly regarded the incident as a security threat and adopted exceptional measures to protect its national sovereignty, national security, and territorial integrity. However, this securitization practice still stayed within Vietnam's cooperation and struggle policy towards China. Behind its securitization of the 2014 oilrig standoff, Vietnam aimed to strengthen both internal and external legitimacy amid growing threats posed by its colossal neighbour.
How does international order persist when actors neither share norms nor submit to coercive authority? This article develops the concepts of the as-if international system and as-if engagement to explain how order can be sustained through performance without belief-deliberate, routinized enactments of diplomatic roles that all parties recognize as fictive yet strategically maintain. Drawing on early East Asian diplomatic history, the study shows how Japan, China, and the Korean polities stabilized relations through mutually intelligible ritual practices despite divergent worldviews and contested understandings of status and authority. Japan's shifting participation in the Chinese world order, its construction of a Japan-centered as-if system, and the coexistence of overlapping regional frameworks demonstrate how ambiguity and symbolic performance produced durable patterned interaction. The article concludes by applying this mechanism to contemporary Asia-Pacific politics, where states navigate both U.S.- and China-led orders by behaving as if these competing arrangements are compatible-thereby sustaining order amid deep normative divergence.
While Western foreign aid often promotes media freedom through conditionality of structural reforms, China has emerged as a major donor offering assistance without such requirements. This article examines how Chinese foreign aid-particularly in the communication sector-affects media freedom in recipient countries. Based on the "aid-for-policy" model, we argue that China facilitates media repression through two channels: by pressuring recipient governments to censor content unfavorable to its interests, and by providing them communication technologies and infrastructures that enable information control. Using panel data from 108 countries between 2000 and 2020, we find that Chinese aid is significantly associated with decline in media freedom in recipient countries. The effect is especially pronounced for communication-related aid and in democratic regimes, suggesting that China's influence extends even into countries with formal institutional constraints. These findings contribute to the literature on digital authoritarianism, authoritarian diffusion, and the political effects of Chinese foreign aid.
This article examines how China leverages strategic narratives to exercise discourse power in the international arena. Following the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019, China proactively shaped global narratives to advance its national interests, despite World Health Organization's investigations into the virus's origins. Text and document analysis show that China systematically changed its messaging from cooperation to contestation. This research advances the understanding of discourse power by identifying the mechanisms through which it is exercised, especially around contentious issues. It also expands the study of COVID-19 by highlighting China's efforts to shape global narratives rather than focusing on domestic dynamics.
This study examines the intellectual and institutional development of International Relations (IR) in Japan from the early 20th century to the present, framing it as a historically embedded and politically contingent knowledge formation. Challenging diffusionist accounts that portray IR as a Western export, it shows how Japanese IR emerged through the convergence of international law, diplomatic history, political science, area studies, and colonial policy studies shaped by imperial expansion, postwar pacifism, and Cold War geopolitics. The study identifies three enduring features: early multidisciplinary, a pragmatic and policy-oriented ethos, and the continued influence of prewar knowledge systems on postwar theoretical pluralism. Situating Japan within broader global and post-Western IR debates, it highlights Japan's hybrid intellectual trajectory and argues that Japanese IR contributes to pluralizing the discipline. Far from derivative, it offers a generative site for rethinking disciplinary boundaries, regional hierarchies, and alternative epistemologies in IR.
The leading position in international institutions brings both economic costs and diplomatic benefits. A state that aspires to "regional leadership" usually strives to form a regional group where it can assume the top position in order to enjoy international status, and moreover, often agrees to shoulder the large economic cost of sustaining regional institutions, expecting that doing so would further enhance its status. This article examines this hypothesis by shedding light on ministry-level preferences regarding regional leadership, using diplomatic archives, memoirs, and other sources. A foreign ministry usually highly values international status and often tries to hold the leading position in regional institutions, excluding more powerful states that would deprive it of this position, with the aim of fully exploiting the diplomatic benefits. In contrast, economic ministries are usually concerned with the economic costs of holding the leading position, such as the importation of goods from "junior" partner states.
The essence of populism lies in constructing an antagonism between “the people” and “the elite.” In this respect, populism can be criticized as making use of rhetorical strategies rather than conveying an objective reality, with privileged groups often employing populist rhetoric to fabricate a disadvantaged identity for strategic political gains. The “anti-China” populist rhetoric of the administration of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) exemplifies this phenomenon. For example, there is evidence that Taiwan’s democratization and economic success have given rise to a Taiwanese sense of superiority over mainland China. There is also evidence that the DPP has leveraged the “China threat” narrative to construct perceptions of insecurity and threat, thereby creating a sense of national victimhood that helps to gain political support in which mainland China is framed as a scapegoat for Taiwan’s eroding superiority. The cross-strait antagonism has been framed as a confrontation between “threatening Taiwan” and “defending Taiwan,” with references also to Taiwan as a “beacon of democracy” and “defender of international order” and mainland China as an “authoritarian threat” and “disruptor of international order.” This article argues that the DPP administration has exaggerated and manipulated the “China threat” narrative, reshaping it into a form of “populism of the privileged.” The article also goes further in that is it highlights important differences with traditional forms of populism: Unlike such populism, which is typically driven by the lower social classes, Taiwan’s “anti-China” populism illustrates that a sense of privilege and victimhood narrative can comfortably sit alongside each other.
