'Global South Dialogue - Navigating the Geopolitics of BRICS: Perspectives from Southeast Asia' - on YouTube

Professor Cheng-Chwee Kuik spoke on the three common misunderstandings about why more nations are becoming new members or partner countries of BRICS. With Gregory T. Chin and Alvaro Mendez, they raised questions about if it is “all about anti-West”; “all about balancing”; and “all about Global South”. They elaborated on reasons why some Southeast Asian states have an interest in joining the BRICS, with a particular emphasis on the middle state’s foreign policy behaviour – notably “hedging”. This event was held on Wednesday 12 February.

Global South Dialogue - Navigating the Geopolitics of BRICS: Perspectives from Southeast Asia

Dr. Kuik Cheng-Chwee is Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), National University of Malaysia (UKM). He is concurrently a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) and a Nonresident Scholar at Carnegie China. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” (CWP) Program and a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University. Professor Kuik’s research focuses on smaller-state foreign and defence policies, Asian security, and international relations. Cheng-Chwee is a regular invited speaker to international conferences and closed-door policy roundtables. Cheng-Chwee’s publications have appeared in such peer-reviewed journals as International Affairs, Pacific Review, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. His essay, “The Essence of Hedging”, won the Michael Leifer Memorial Prize awarded by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He is co-author (with David Lampton and Selina Ho) of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (2020) and co-editor (with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo) of Institutionalizing East Asia (2016). His current projects include: hedging in international relations, domestic politics and foreign policy choices, and the geopolitics of connectivity cooperation. Cheng-Chwee serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Politics and Policy, International Journal of Asian Studies, and East Asian Policy. He also served as Head of the Writing Team (2019-2020) for the Government of Malaysia’s inaugural Defence White Paper and a member of the Consultative Council on Foreign Policy, Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023). He holds an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews, and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Photo Credit: By gov.br - Own work using: https://www.gov.br/secom/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2024/12/conheca-a-identidade-visual-do-brics-brasil-arvore-amazonica-traduz-objetivos-do-grupo, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157608247