The growing geopolitical competition between the United States and China is changing world power dynamics and generating a storm for governments all across the world. Among those most impacted are the so-called “middle powers“, states with sophisticated economies, significant regional influence, and diplomatic leverage but neither superpowers nor little actors. Seeking to maintain strategic autonomy while negotiating the demand to align with one of the two global powers, nations such Australia, South Korea, Germany, India, and Indonesia find themselves in a difficult balancing act more and more. In this sense, strategic autonomy is the ability of sovereign governments to conduct autonomous foreign policies serving their national interests free from unnecessary external interference or pressure.
Often supporting multilateral institutions, advancing international standards, and serving as mediators in disputes, middle powers have long been stabilizers in the international order. This function is threatened, nevertheless, by the rising polarizing of the world system. Middle countries are having to rethink their diplomatic, economic, and security policies as a US-led liberal order’s split between an assertive, sometimes authoritarian China-led alternative forces middle powers. Many find the difficulty not just in deciding which side to support but also in keeping the freedom to actively interact with both nations while preserving national sovereignty and development objectives.
One of the primary tactic’s middle countries uses is hedging, economically interacting with China while keeping security ties or partnerships with the United States. Recognizing China’s economic significance in Southeast Asia, nations like Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia have aggressively traded and invested in China. Concurrently, they have sought tighter security relations with the United States to offset Beijing’s expanding military presence, especially in the South China Sea. This two-track strategy shows an effort to maximize advantages from both partnerships while avoiding reliance on either powerhouse.
Still another essential instrument for preserving strategic autonomy is economic diversity. The COVID-19 epidemic and later disturbances of world supply networks revealed the weaknesses of too dependent manufacturing centred on China. Middle powers like Japan and India have responded with measures meant to lower reliance on Chinese imports and promote regional trade substitutes or homegrown manufacturing. Part of larger attempts to create strong, multi-polar economic ties that lower sensitivity to great power coercion are initiatives include the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
Middle powers are progressively depending on multilateralism diplomatically to raise their voices and protect themselves from binary decisions. Through strengthening organizations as the United Nations, ASEAN, the G20, and the Quad, these nations want to establish venues where power is better distributed and where group action may help to lessen the pressure from great power conflict. For instance, attempts to preserve a multilateral system that limits unilateralism and allows smaller nations greater agency come from South Korea’s “middle power diplomacy” and Canada’s focus on rules-based international order.
Maintaining strategic autonomy depends equally much on security alliances. Still, they are sometimes subtle and well-tuned. Australia, for example, is a major member of Aukus and a strong U.S. friend, but it has also sought to mend relations with China, its biggest economic partner. Traditionally non-aligned, India has strengthened defence cooperation with the United States via joint military operations and weapons agreements; but it is hesitant to be included into any official anti-China coalition. These trends mirror a larger middle-power trend wherein security connections are reinforced without sacrificing their capacity to interact with many partners.
Still, the quest of strategic autonomy has many hazards and paradoxes. Too much hedging can foster distrust among the big nations or provide impressions of opportunism. For developing nations specifically, economic diversification takes time and could not completely counterbalance China’s economic weight. Furthermore, under pressure are international institutions themselves, often impeded by geopolitics that lessens their effectiveness. These limitations highlight how difficult it is to negotiate autonomy in a society divided more and more.
The internal political setting of medium powers presents even another difficulty. Choice of foreign policy is much shaped by national leadership, public opinion, and elite discourse. In democracies, changes in government may cause sudden changes in alignment, therefore compromising the stability required to maintain an independent course. Foreign policy may start to be a weapon for domestic legitimacy in nations with split politics, therefore complicating strategic orientation. Therefore, the effectiveness of autonomy initiatives relies on internal coherence and resilience as well as on outside balance.
Middle powers’ strategic autonomy going ahead will rely on their abilities to innovate politically, strengthen regional collaboration, and fund technical and economic self-reliance. Future is not likely to bring a stable bipolar equilibrium or a return to a unipolar world. Rather, a complicated and even explosive multi-polarity is developing wherein influence is scattered and alliances are erratic. Middle powers that can stay nimble, moral, and pragmatic will be most suited in this setting to defend their interests and support world stability.
For middle powers the US–China conflict offers both possibilities and problems. These governments have demonstrated great inventiveness in developing plans that maintain autonomy, even while the temptation to choose sides is growing. Middle powers are trying to negotiate their own path in a world more characterized by great power rivalry by means of hedging, multilateralism, economic diversification, or strategic alliances. Their capacity for this will be rather important in determining the features of the global order in the next decades.
