To judge by media accounts from last weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the United States and China are headed into very troubled waters. Beijing’s accelerated efforts to fortify reefs and shoals in the South China Sea and the U.S. Pacific Command’s surveillance of these activities—including press leaks that China has positioned two “motorized artillery pieces” on an unspecified location in the Spratly Islands—dominated news coverage. For many observers, this action-reaction cycle portends more worrisome possibilities.