ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some of the Western misperceptions of Asia, followed by a brief survey of security and defence political trends in ‘Asia’. Asia has been the subject of heated debates in ‘the West’ for several years, both in Western Europe and the United States and in Australia, where the understanding is usually much better. The allegations that Asian countries are fundamentally bellicose, and that the absence of international organizations and formal institutions is a cause of concern, seems to be based on a very a historical view of the world as well as on xenophobia bordering on racism. The West’s concerns about particular arms acquisitions by Asian countries, and the resultant proliferation risks, also seem vastly overblown. China remains something of an enigma to the West, inter alia because of the closed nature of Chinese society and the lack of reliable data on military expenditures, arms production and military planning.
