Defense and Technology Supplement: Dragon Growling

“THE uneasiness with China goes deep,” is how Goh Chok Tong put it in May. The Singapore prime minister, not a man to speak lightly, was referring to a conspicuous change in the way the rest of Asia views China.

Goodwill almost everywhere greeted Peking’s emergence from self-imposed isolation when it began twenty years ago. But recent arms purchases and an increasingly confrontational foreign policy have led to its replacement today by worries, which Asian leaders are increasingly willing to articulate.

AW

About the Author

Arthur Waldron

Mr. Waldron is the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the department of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

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“THE uneasiness with China goes deep,” is how Goh Chok Tong put it in May. The Singapore prime minister, not a man to speak lightly, was referring to a conspicuous change in the way the rest of Asia views China.

Goodwill almost everywhere greeted Peking’s emergence from self-imposed isolation when it began twenty years ago. But recent arms purchases and an increasingly confrontational foreign policy have led to its replacement today by worries, which Asian leaders are increasingly willing to articulate.