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ALT ABSTRACT This paper responds to the 2023 special edition of this journal on Indigenous Diplomacy, taking seriously its provocation that Indigenous Diplomacy has the potential to disrupt dominant understandings of diplomacy as a formalised and state-based practice. We argue that this disruption requires making visible the Westphalian foundations of IR that render alternative forms of political relation not simply different, but illegible. Drawing on pluriversal thinking as a counter-frame, and from our experiences working in First Nations contexts in northern Australia, we explore what becomes visible in these encounters when viewed through a diplomatic lens. We use narrative accounts to render inter-institutional situations where knowers from different traditions interact, interpreting them through the conceptual persona of the diplomat. We identify caution, quietude, and deference as key elements of the diplomat's repertoire in these fragile yet generative spaces. We contend that what

ALT ABSTRACT This article explains the changing logic of US Taiwan policy amid intensifying US-China competition. Moving beyond the binary debate between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity, it argues that Washington has increasingly transformed the Taiwan question into an amplifier of strategic containment against China. Drawing on neoclassical realism, the article develops a cross-level framework in which US-China positional competition functions as the systemic stimulus, US-led asymmetric minilateralism operates as the intervening mechanism, and hybrid intervention constitutes the policy output. Hybrid intervention is defined as the coordinated use of diverse non-military instruments across high - and low-politics domains to interfere directly or indirectly in China's internal affairs while mobilising allies and partners to generate collective pressure. Through process tracing of the Biden administration, the article finds qualified evidence that US agenda-setting and institutiona

ALT ABSTRACT U.S.-China geostrategic competition has far-reaching consequences for international relations and domestic politics across Asia and the Pacific. Smaller states are not merely objects but also subjects of geostrategic rivalry. They demonstrate strategic responses with their own agency and interests. Despite the growing literature on great power competition, knowledge gaps about smaller states are evident. The diversity across the Asia-Pacific region suggests that a one-size-fits-all research approach to asymmetric relations between smaller states and great powers is not desirable. This Special Section, with an empirical focus on Southeast Asia and Oceania, seeks to enrich debates on the important yet often-neglected role of smaller states amid U.S.-China competition. It explores how smaller states perceive and respond to great power competition, and what are the implications for these countries and/or the regional order. The four articles in this Special Issue highlight vulnera

ALT ABSTRACT The prospect of Chinese nationalist public opinion driving a spiral of escalation in the South China Sea has been debated among analysts and policymakers for well over a decade. How do Southeast Asian claimant states and external great powers such as the United States interpret the role of Chinese public opinion in the South China Sea dispute, and how might this affect their policy preferences? This article uses a scenario-based survey experiment with international affairs experts in the Philippines, Vietnam and the United States to examine how nationalist sentiment in China influences observers' risk perceptions and policy preferences in a hypothetical crisis. Experts in the two Southeast Asian claimant countries gave higher initial estimations of China's resolve, but attached much less significance to Chinese public opinion than US analysts. Effects on preferred policy responses were mixed, but respondents in all three countries became more willing to countenance economic co

ALT ABSTRACT Cognitive warfare has become a key element of strategic competition in the twenty-first century. However, few studies systematically analyse it from the perspective of international relations theory. This article fills this gap by exploring cognitive warfare from the perspective of offensive realism and strategic competition. It suggests that due to the rise of digital technologies, cognitive warfare constitutes a new and important statecraft enabling states to gain advantages in the information age, and that it is an asymmetric strategy particularly attractive for states disadvantaged by material power. Using the Ukraine war as an example, this study explores how Russia and Ukraine use cognitive warfare to shape the outcomes in their favour. While Russia uses disinformation, narrative manipulation, and cyber operations to undermine Ukraine's social cohesion and international support, Ukraine pursues an asymmetric strategy and uses strategic communication to construct battlefi

ALT ABSTRACT The grey zone has been at the centre of lively debates since the concept was formalised more than a decade ago. An abundant literature has emerged over that period that has considerably improved our understanding of the "space between war and peace". Yet, grey zone operations have continued to be, in many ways, frustratingly difficult to capture fully and even more difficult to efficiently respond to. This article examines the recent proposal to overlay the grey zone with the 'Illegal, Coercive, Aggressive and Deceptive' (ICAD) framework. It argues that ICAD can fruitfully contribute to a disambiguation of the grey zone, by linking grey zone operations to known sets of behaviours and actions. In doing so, ICAD also facilitates the formulation of potentially more efficient responses, as it allows a more fine-grained identification of the challenges posed by specific grey zone operations and the mobilisation of relevant countervailing approaches.

ALT ABSTRACT For at least a decade, New Zealand's relationship with China has been characterised by the confluence of burgeoning economic interdependence and increasing security concerns. In seeking to explain this trajectory, the existing academic literature has highlighted the concept of New Zealand as an ontological trading state, drawn on Marxist theory, or adopted either a geopolitical realist, or a neoclassical realist explanation. This article contributes to the literature by advancing an alternative structural realist understanding of New Zealand's China policy, highlighting the impact of Chinese power projection in the South Pacific region on New Zealand's security. The article discusses a series of Chinese power projection initiatives in the South Pacific from 2020-2026 that have been viewed unfavourably by Wellington. These include the deployment of economic coercion against Australia from 2020-2023; military exercises in the Tasman Sea in 2025 and missile tests in 2024 and 2026

ALT ABSTRACT The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue's institutional strategies between 2018 and 2024 compelled Beijing to alter its approach to assert regional hegemony that relied on the leveraging of economic interdependencies and low-level warfare supported by its military power. In response to Beijing's strategy, the Quad produced a counterapproach that relied on inclusive and exclusive agreements comprising neoliberal and neorealist mechanisms to uphold the liberal rules-based order and preserve the territorial status quo in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad agreements laid an inclusive path for mitigating the pressures produced by their economic interdependence on China and the perception of defence asymmetries to produce a counter to the revisionist threat in the region. These Quad strategies signalled the partners' collective capacity to exclude China from their future growth while also defending its members' territorial interests, with implications for Beijing's future growth amid economic

ALT ABSTRACT South Korea is a self-identified 'middle power,' aspiring to assume greater responsibilities, including the promotion of universal values and humanitarian diplomacy. Yet, it maintains one of the lowest refugee acceptance rates among OECD members. Existing research attributes this restrictiveness to ethnic nationalism, anti-refugee sentiment, and a refugee status determination (RSD) process shaped by an institutional ethos that prioritises law and order over refugee protection. This research shifts the focus from institutional and societal constraints to identity constructions. Adopting a critical constructivist framework, it analyzes National Assembly debates and Ministry of Justice policy discourses between 2008 and 2024 to examine how South Korea's self-understanding as a middle power is constructed and negotiated through representations of refugees as 'others.' The analysis finds that although South Korea promotes humanitarian engagement, its middle power identity is contin

ALT ABSTRACT The evolving mobility of students between Australia and China offers a revealing lens through which to examine the intersection of international education, geopolitics, and global power dynamics. Once primarily an academic and economic exchange, international high education has become entangled with geopolitical competition, particularly amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry. These dynamics have generated uncertainty for Chinese students overseas and destabilised long-standing educational ties with host countries such as Australia. Drawing on a systematic review of scholarly, policy and media sources, this paper situates China-Australia student mobility within its broader geopolitical context. The article maps out how international education has become a geopolitically significant domain shaped by economic interdependence, strategic statecraft, and evolving security narratives. It shows how historical soft power practices and asymmetric dependencies have transformed student mob

ALT ABSTRACT Australia's defence strategy outlines key investments in a drone-based approach to deterrence by denial. Drones are now an established feature of modern war. This signifies a key shift; control of the air space is no longer the sole domain of the US and other well-resourced states. The commercialisation of drones and the subsequent movement of battle into the air littoral space, and given Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs) have access to semi-autonomous weapons, has increased the parity between state and non-state actor. Many NSAGs have recognised how effectively drones fit with their tactical profile, including enabling them to field airpower capabilities. This was demonstrated by Hamas special forces who used drones as a central pillar of the October 7 attack against Israel, one of the world's leading drone states. Examining NSAGs provides another layer of analysis to the use of drones by small mobile units and helps avoid an overreliance on lessons from the Ukraine war. Additio

ALT ABSTRACT Signed diplomatic formulations do not always cease to operate when an issuing state narrows their interpretation at home. This article examines what happens when domestic narrowing occurs, while the signed text remains in the bilateral archive. It compares Indonesia-China around the November 2024 Prabowo-Xi Joint Statement with Philippines-China from the 2005 Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking to renewed talks in 2026. In Indonesia, contested wording on 'joint development in areas of overlapping claims', carried in English and Chinese public records, was narrowed by ministerial clarification yet returned at presidential level within months. In the Philippines, cooperation language travelled across later instruments despite executive distancing and judicial nullification. Across both cases, disputed language persisted in the bilateral archive as domestic narrowing unfolded, showing that containment does not amount to erasure. Through intertextual analysis of bilateral documents,

ALT ABSTRACT Minilateral cooperation has become prominent in Indo-Pacific security governance, yet debate remains centred largely on great-power coalitions and strategic competition. Less attention has been paid to how capable non-hegemonic states organise selective cooperation within ASEAN-centred regionalism or why similar pressures generate different institutional forms across issue domains. This article develops a domain-sensitive framework for assessing the institutional forms and minilateral potential of middle-power-facilitated cooperation. It applies the framework through a structured comparison of Korea-ASEAN cooperation in cybersecurity, supply-chain resilience, and defence-industrial collaboration. The findings identify institutional differentiation and redirection across domains rather than a linear decline in cooperation. Cybersecurity shows the strongest evidence of recurrent multi-actor capacity-building, but these activities remain embedded in inclusive ASEAN-led mechanisms