Dominance by default: How China was handed East Asia on a platter

Anyone within range of China's expanding navy will have to build capabilities faster and/or work more closely with the US, as Australia has just announced, writes T N Ninan

There is a simple way to explain the shift of naval power in East Asia over the past two decades: The region was handed to Beijing on a platter. Back in the year 2000, China’s defence expenditure in relation to the US outlay was in the ratio of 1:11. By last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, that ratio had changed dramatically to 1:3. China’s defence outlay multiplied six-fold while Japan’s stayed where it was and Taiwan’s increased by just 10 per cent. South Korea, in a contest with North Korea rather than China, did better by