China's Neighbors Are Nervous About China

Lost Horizon: A Chill In The Air At A Regional Forum -- The Economist

THE term “Shangri-La Dialogue” has a heady, Utopian ring to it. But the debate at an annual Asian-security summit held between June 4th and 6th in the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore had a sobering undertone. The sinking in March of a South Korean naval ship has focused minds on a bellicose, nuclear-armed North Korea, though it denies responsibility for the attack. Tensions are also rising over sovereignty and navigation rights in the contested South China Sea. Armies in the region need to talk more and avoid misunderstandings. Defence chiefs at the forum, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, could agree on that much. But they found it tricky to agree on much else.

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My Comment: China of today reminds me of Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. A growing economy put demands on Japan to seek the required resources and materials needed for it's growth to continue. Unfortunately for Japan's neighbors then .... who are also the same countries of today .... China's needs for resources and materials has created the same environment in which these smaller countries are now being overshadowed by the demands and needs of a bigger and more powerful neighbor.

I doubt that China will conduct a war of expansion in the same manner that Japan did in the first half of the 20th century, but China is exercising its growing economic and military strength to get its way .... and China's neighbors in return are expressing their own independence and reluctance to follow the wishes and needs of their more powerful neighbor.

The chill in the air is real .... but as far as I am concerned .... it could be worse.