Great Power Competition,Costly Signaling,and Foreign Policy Choices of Small States:The Case of Philippines and Singapore in Sino-US Competition
Competing major powers not only try to maintain their relative power positions but also seek higher status to establish their international influence.Given the social character of status,even if a great power has great strength,its status needs the recognition of small countries.In order to win the status support of small countries,great powers will actively use their own strength to provide cooperative goods to small countries.This article uses the theory of"costly signaling"to explore the policy impacts of China and the United States on the Philippines and Singapore at different times.This article hypothesizes that if there are two great powers in the international system that are comparable in strength,competing with each other,and they are both able and willing to provide security and economic goods to small states,the small states will base their policy on the perceived costs of the signals sent by the two great powers.Small states,in turn,will assess the credibility of great powers'commitments and adopt different policy stances to express support or doubt for powerful states'status as great power.When two great powers send signals that carry high costs,small countries tend to adopt a hedging stance(expressing ambiguous attitudes towards the status of the big power);when there is a clear difference in the costs of signals sent by great powers,small states tend to support the power with higher signaling costs.This article conducts a case study of the Philippines and Singapore to test the hypotheses proposed above.
Great Power CompetitionSignaling CostsCredibility of CommitmentsPhilippinesSingapore