International Rules and Strategic Policy Space

United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, are locked into strategic competition and rivalry that complicates international policy choices for the rest of the world, but particularly for their partners in Asia. How do smaller countries, middle powers and the rest of the world navigate their economic, political and strategic choices when China and the US are increasingly applying pressure to choose between them? US allies such as Australia, South Korea and Japan need to balance their security interests alongside their economic interests, but are they destined to a prosperity–security trade-off, the parameters of which are fixed independently of their own strategic behaviour? Economic policy was never separate from considerations of national security. The recipe for a modern, secure country – a strong economy that is globally integrated through trade and invest