Southeast Asia faces the conundrum that its largest economic benefactor China is also a geopolitical challenger to the region’s cohesion and rules-based order. How do Southeast Asian states balance their economic interests and security interests? What is the role of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision (FOIP) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in that balancing process? How can we conceptualize these balancing actions using hedging? Using Cheng-Chwee Kuik’s hedging framework, this presentation comparatively investigates how Southeast Asian states hedge against China by leveraging the FOIP vision and BRI to secure strategic autonomy. This research finds that the competitive nature of Sino-Japanese relations, as manifested in the interaction between the BRI and FOIP, provides Southeast Asian states extra regional assets to lessen the contradictions that exist between the beneficial economic interactions with China and its geopolitical challenges. Details and registration here