Abstract The literature on hedging as a secondary state strategy – built largely on evidence from United States-China competition in East and Southeast Asia – focuses on conditions where a major power presents both an economic opportunity and a security threat. In South Asia, in contrast, secondary states facing strategic competition between India and China have pursued hedging strategies in the absence of a security threat. We develop a theoretical reconciliation of these two phenomena. Hedging at its core involves a trade-off between the material benefits and autonomy costs of cooperating with a major power in a competitive environment. States are likely to hedge when these benefits and costs are simultaneously rising. We test the plausibility of this theory in the cases of the Maldives and Sri Lanka. The autonomy trade-off operates both in the absence and in the presence of a security threat, thus offering a theoretical advancement with greater empirical scope.

中文翻译：

---

南亚对冲：在中印竞争中平衡经济和安全利益

摘要 将对冲作为次要国家战略的文献——主要建立在美中在东亚和东南亚竞争的证据之上——侧重于大国同时存在经济机会和安全威胁的情况。相比之下，在南亚，面临中印战略竞争的次要国家在没有安全威胁的情况下采取了对冲策略。我们开发了这两种现象的理论协调。对冲的核心是在竞争环境中与大国合作的物质利益和自主成本之间的权衡。当这些收益和成本同时上升时，各州可能会进行对冲。我们在马尔代夫和斯里兰卡的案例中检验了这一理论的合理性。