Abstract in English:

Abstract Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China’s overseas interests have been faced with a growing array of multidimensional threats. China has carried out legislative and institutional reforms, forming a “vertical-horizontal model” for interagency cooperation and government-society fusion. The central government of China has passed a series of legislative acts to legalise China’s protection of overseas interests, a top-down vertical governance. Parallel ministries, departments, and offices have formed task-based institutions through consultation to promote China’s overseas interest protection, thereby establishing a cross-sectoral horizontal governance mechanism. The implementation of the “vertical-horizontal model,” however, confronts an array of hurdles, with heavy bureaucracy potentially giving rise to problems such as inefficiency and collective irresponsibility.

Abstract in English:

Abstract Contemporary world order exhibits interdependence without a single state able to impose ordering principles unilaterally and without the hegemonic war often presumed to clear the slate. Scholarship conflates dominant power with the order it sponsors, so criticism of the liberal international order (LIO) is read as an attack on primacy. This article theorises hegemony, in Gramscian terms, as a relational ordering structure that fuses coercion, political economy, and ideas, and that endures through absorption and co-option of dissent. Challenges are incorporated through selective concessions and institutional redesign, diluting their transformative content while reiterating core principles. Our argument decouples power transition from order transition, moving debate beyond collapse versus persistence by advancing an analytically tractable account of adaptive endurance that shows how hegemonic orders renew themselves through the managed incorporation of critique into institutional reform.

Abstract in English:

Abstract What if third-party involvement and economic interdependence, often assumed to foster compromise, are precisely what entrench escalation in international negotiations? This paper introduces a supermodular game-theoretic framework to explain how indirect third-party alignment and domestic political constraints can produce strategic complementarities that lock actors into rigid bargaining positions. Drawing on an analytic narrative of the 2006 Bolivia–Brazil gas negotiations, we demonstrate how Venezuela’s political and financial backing emboldened Bolivia to harden its stance, while Brazil’s capacity to respond assertively was neutralized by domestic audience costs, intensified by electoral pressures. The result was not mediation or de-escalation, but a contested equilibrium shaped by positive feedback dynamics. Our findings show that third-party support can strategically reshape payoff structures in ways that incentivize escalation, even under conditions of deep interdependence. This framework advances the study of international negotiations by modelling how escalation can emerge endogenously from the strategic structure of trilateral interactions.

Abstract in English:

Abstract This article examines Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy from Abe to Kishida administrations through its engagement with Vietnam. It argues that, in response to shifting regional power dynamics, Japan has employed cooptation, combining security, cultural, and economic initiatives as a central foreign policy instrument to expand the FOIP framework. This strategy seeks to engage regional partners while signaling commitment to key allies. Based on document analysis and data on trade, development assistance, and security cooperation, the study analyzes Japan’s policies toward Southeast Asia between 2012 and 2024. It demonstrates how FOIP integrates security, political, and economic statecraft to navigate contemporary Indo-Pacific geopolitics.

Abstract in English:

Abstract How does China’s engagement with Iran affect the U.S. hegemony in the Gulf? Drawing on soft balancing and multiplex world order frameworks, this paper analyzes contemporary China–Iran relations along three axes: strategic partnership through Iran’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; Chinese diplomatic mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia; and China’s economic and financial partnerships with Tehran through the Belt and Road Initiative. We argue that these axes are fundamental tools of political-diplomatic engagement and economic-financial relations that China mobilizes to soft balance the U.S. in the Gulf. By doing so, Beijing challenges Washington’s primacy in the region while avoiding direct military confrontation with it. The article deepens understanding of China’s Gulf strategy and explores Iran’s role in it.