Sizing up the dragon

摘要

How big a threat is China's military build-up? Most foreign-policy makers in the administration think it represents the most significant long-term challenge to America's global security. China itself, on the other hand, finds it unconscionable that any country should regard its secretive build-up as worrying-which is odd, given that military spending, by official calculations, has been increasing at double-digit rates for much of the past decade. Both sides may breathe a temporary sigh of relief this week that the Pentagon, in a long delayed and much debated report on China's military strength, suggests that China itself has not yet decided what to do with its own growing power.