Second, smaller states do have agency, even if only in a low-profile manner.
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First, structural impact matters: as geopolitical uncertainty increases, weaker states hedge more deeply. The features of this approach are: an insistence on not taking sides, concurrent adoption of open deference and indirect defiance, and an active effort to cultivate a fallback position, all aimed at reducing multiple risks associated with the uncertainties of US commitment, China's long-term intentions, and their future relations. It argues that Malaysia's ‘light-hedging’ approach is primarily a smaller-state's response to growing systemic pressure arising from power asymmetry, rivalry, and uncertainties. This essay traces the structural sources of Malaysia's South China Sea policy. Theoretically, re-attention to multilateralism’s diplomatic foundations also offers the English School an opportunity to make more distinctive contributions to ongoing debates about East Asia’s networking processes and security arrangements. The result is a more complex security environment and normative context that calls for more multifaceted responses from all, including the United States and China whose current multilateral diplomacies both draw from and challenge the multilateral norms and practices that have been created. Drawing on the English School, it argues for revisiting multilateralism’s diplomatic foundations as a way to direct attention to (1) the practice’s region-specific content and (2) the ways that multilateralism has introduced system-transitioning changes that include system-level dynamics associated with membership, actor hood, and the types of security at stake. This article traces East Asia’s evolving multilateralisms and role in transitioning East Asia away from “US hub-and-spokes” bilateralism toward a more networked system of security arrangements. The potential for this policy approach to be applied by the United States and its regional security partners as an enduring and credible means of diplomatic and security collaboration in the region will remain unfulfilled as long as the Trump administration's own geopolitical orientation remains uncertain. However, minilateralism's track record in the region is underdeveloped. Minilateralism's informality and flexibility appeals to those who are sceptical about multilateralism's traditional focus on norm adherence and community-building even as great power competition in the Indo-Pacific is sharply intensifying. Multilateralism and minilateralism have emerged as two increasingly prominent forms of such cooperation. The postwar American-led network of bilateral alliances – underpinned by concrete guarantees of extended deterrence and containment – is now yielding to a more diverse set of alignments and coalitions to manage an increasingly complex array of regional security issues. The Indo-Pacific region's security landscape is unfolding in highly uncertain and potentially explosive ways.