Denny Roy, The Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security

摘要

The Return of the Dragon is a timely and significant addition to the growing debate among academics and policy-makers on the rise of China and its impact on Asian security, especially as tensions increase in the maritime territorial disputes between China and several of its neighbors. Through the lens of zero-sum offensive realism, Roy argues that the rapid rise of China as "an indignant new great power" seeking "a sphere of influence" in Asia will inevitably "generate strategic tensions" and thus "decrease security for the region" (p. 2) and "lead to a net reduction in security for most of the world" (p. 262). Moreover, China's strong and unique worldview-the self-perception of its past glory, inherently peace-loving, defensive strategic culture, and desire for international prestige, along with the "century of shame and humiliation" from the Opium War to the PRC's independence and its perceptions of Asian-Pacific states and the U.S.-further exacerbates growing anxieties and suspicions from other regional powers.