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Against the backdrop of China's assertive policies in the South China Sea, the present study evaluates how Vietnam has sought to mitigate the increasingly unequal regional power distribution vis-à-vis China. It argues that Vietnam tends to cope with China mainly by engaging itself in hedging strategies on the basis of diversified and strong relationships with different players. Appraising the roles of Russia and the European Union (EU), the study analyzes the pay-offs of Vietnam's military hedging with Russia and its economic hedging with the EU.

The relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine have been predominantly explained in the light of the European Neighbourhood Policy that ascribes a central role to political conditionality. This analytical approach, however, overlooks the fact that since the 1990s, the EU has been developing a partnership policy that needs to be taken into consideration. This partnership policy was enshrined in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the EU Common Strategy towards Ukraine in 1999, and with the advent of the twenty-first century came to incorporate differentiated elements, notably the growing politico-diplomatic alignment within the realm of Common Foreign and Security Policy and a tangible participation in Common Security and Defence Policy missions. While these features have ascribed the country a distinctive status, neither of the parties has hitherto engaged in formalizing a strategic partnership. Against this backdrop, this article attempts to explain this somewhat paradoxical situation by teasing out and discussing the evolution of the cooperation between the EU and Ukraine which is informed by a complex institutional and legal design. It argues that two decades of bilateral relationship have engendered an ambiguous partnership, given the necessity felt by the EU to give the upper hand to an intergovernmentally driven 'Russia-first policy', while accommodating Kiev's ambitions to become a EU full-fledged member.

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Soft power has emerged as a topic of growing interest in Chinese foreign policy and its expression gained new salience when it was anchored within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This article proposes a comparative analysis of the soft power of China and the European Union (EU) in the context of the BRI and Global Strategy of June 2016. Drawing on the role theory, this study seeks to fill a gap in previous scholarly works, focusing on the soft power dynamics underlying the China-EU relationship, which do not incorporate the BRI as an increasingly influential soft power tool in Chinese foreign policy. It concludes that the BRI and Global Strategy have infused China's and EU's soft power, respectively, with innovating aspects; and despite the emergence of some common ground as a result of that, differences between the two actors regarding role conception, role expectation and role performance remain noticeable.