Dr. Kuik Cheng-Chwee is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies. He is concurrently Professor of International Relations at the National University of Malaysia (UKM).
Previously he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” Program and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Oxford. Professor Kuik’s research focuses on the external policies of small and secondary states, big powers in the Indo-Pacific, Asian security, and international relations. His publications have appeared in such peer-reviewed journals as International Affairs, Pacific Review, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. He is author of Theorizing Hedging: Explaining Shifts and Variations in Alignment Choices (Cambridge, 2026); co-author (with David Lampton and Selina Ho) of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (2020) and co-editor (with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo) of Institutionalizing East Asia (2016). Cheng-Chwee’s essay, “The Essence of Hedging”, won ISEAS’s Michael Leifer Memorial Prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Politics and Policy, and several other international journals. He also served as Head of the Writing Team (2019-2020) for the Government of Malaysia’s inaugural Defence White Paper. He holds an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is listed in Stanford University’s Top 2% Scientists, subfield International Relations, in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Academic Background

PhD in Asian Studies (Johns Hopkins University, USA), Distinction in Dissertation
M.Litt. in International Security (University of St. Andrews, UK), Distinction in Thesis
B.A. in Public Administration (Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia), Distinction in Thesis

Professional Background

Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI), School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University
Nonresident Scholar at Carnegie China, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Asia Global Institute
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Centre on Contemporary China and the World, University of Hong Kong
Member, Consultative Council on Foreign Policy (CCFP), Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023)
Consultant, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), New York (2021)
Consultant, Asian Development Bank (ADB), 2018-2019
Founder and Co-convener, East Asian International Relations (EAIR) Caucus, Malaysia