Title: The Hedgers: How the Global South Navigates Sino-American Competition

Guest Speaker:  Yves Tiberghien (TSE Dean, Director of MA Program, and Distinguished Professor)

Time: April 9th (Thurs), 12:00 - 1:00 PM

Venue: TSE Common Area (2F Innovation and Incubation Hall, National Tsing Hua University)

The Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (TSE) at National Tsing Hua University is pleased to invite Professor Yves Tiberghien (TSE Dean, Director of MA Program, and Distinguished Professor) to introduce his new book The Hedgers: How The Global South Navigates the Sino-American Competition, co-authored with Zaki Laïdi (Sciences Po, Paris).

About the book:

The extreme instability caused by the interminable war in Ukraine, Sino-American tensions, and Trump's return to power raises an essential question: How can the states of the Global South – particularly those endowed with significant resources and full of ambition – navigate this current global turbulence? Are they succumbing to the logic of bipolarity, or are they escaping from it by amplifying their hedging power, and, in the process, making the international system more multipolar? To answer these key questions, we analyze the strategic behavior of eight states: India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, South Africa, and Brazil. Their selection is based on eight precise metrics. It is these eight key states that we call the Hedgers. They are among the countries of the Global South that have good opportunities to navigate – with some challenges – the troubled environment of what is increasingly difficult to call the 'world order.'

Short Bio:

Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002; Harvard Academy Scholar; Fulbright Scholar) is a Distinguished Professor and Dean of the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, at National Tsing Hua University. Yves is also a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Japanese Research (on leave of absence) at the University of British Columbia.

Yves is an Adjunct Chair Professor at the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS), National Chengchi University in Taipei, and a visiting professor at Tokyo University’s Graduate School of Public Policy (GrASPP) and at Vietnam’s Free Trade University (FTU). He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and a Senior Fellow at the University of Alberta’s China Institute. He has held other visiting positions at Sciences Po Paris, GRIPS (Tokyo), and the Jakarta School of Public Policy (Indonesia).

He is an International Steering Committee Member at Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) and a member of the US-China high-level think tank dialogue on the global economic order.

In 2022, he served as a Member of the Advisory Committee on the Indo-Pacific Strategy of Canada to the Foreign Minister.

In November 2017, he was made a Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite by the French President.

In 2014-2016, Yves served as Co-Director of the UBC Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs (MPPGA), which he founded as Chair of the UBC Public Policy Curriculum Committee. Yves also previously served as the Chair of the UBC President’s Committee on International Strategy.

His research focuses on the global order, the comparative political economy of East Asia, and global economic and environmental governance. His latest books are titled The Hedgers: How The Global South Navigates the Sino-American Competition (2026, Cambridge University Press Element Series, co-authored with Zaki Laïdi from Sciences Po Paris); and the Global Economic Order on the Brink (co-edited book with Shiro Armstrong), Canberra: ANU Press, forthcoming 2026.

He is working on two other books: Up for Grabs: Disruption, Competition, and the Remaking of the Global Order and Navigating the Age of Disruption: Options in a Shifting Global Order. He is also leading a research project on the political economy of the twin industrial revolutions (digital/AI and green tech). His previous books include Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France,
Japan, and Korea (2007, Cornell University Press); L’Asie et le futur du monde (2012, Paris: Science Po Press); and Leadership in Global Institution-Building: Minerva’s Rule (2013, edited volume, Palgrave McMillan). In 2020, he edited an online collection of papers on Japan’s leadership in the Liberal International Order. He recently also authored The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox (2021. Cambridge University Press Element Series, with post-2021 updates found here), to be soon followed by a second one, titled East Asia’s COVID Responses: Long-Term Lessons.

In 2023, he co-edited an online collection of short papers on the political economy of the twin industrial revolutions (AI and green tech) in Japan and East Asia. He has published articles and book chapters on the political economy of Japan and China, global governance, global climate change politics, and the governance of agricultural biotechnology.

Yves co-founded the Vision 20 initiative in 2015, a new coalition of global scholars and policy-makers aiming at providing a long-term perspective on the challenges of global economic and environmental governance. The first large-scale summit took place in advance of the G20 in Hangzhou, China in 2016.