Global Courant
The US military will continue to move through Asian skies and seas, where China has become increasingly belligerent, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in Singapore, where China’s defense minister’s refusal to talk to him has deepened the rifts between Beijing and Washington has brought to light. .
The annual Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, in its two decades of operation, has become a meeting place for military officials from Washington and Beijing to spar rhetorically, as well as conduct bilateral discussions to ease tensions. This year, however, China’s Defense Minister, General Li Shangfurefused to meet Mr. Austin.
In his speech, Mr. Austin highlighted his main themes: justifying activities by the United States and its allies in the seas and airspace near China; promoting stronger alliances with Washington in the region; and pledged continued U.S. support to Taiwan. These are all pain points for Beijing, especially for Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“We are not deterred by dangerous operational behavior at sea or in international airspace,” said Mr. Austin to audiences of military officials and experts from across Asia and beyond. “The People’s Republic of China continues to conduct an alarming number of risky interceptions of US and allied aircraft legally flying in international airspace. “We have all just witnessed another disturbing case of aggressive and unprofessional flying through the People’s Republic of China,” he said, referring to China.
In late May, a Chinese J-16 fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea. US Indo-Pacific Command.
It was one of the recent flare-ups in Singapore, where concerns have centered on the confusing dynamics between the world’s two largest economies: signs of efforts to ease tensions amid deep mutual distrust over military and strategic intentions.
Mr. Austin and China’s Defense Minister General Li shook hands in a brief meeting during the forum’s opening dinner on Friday. But on Saturday Mr Austin said it was not enough, with volatile issues such as nuclear weapons and dangerous air and sea standoffs needing attention.
“A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for substantive engagement,” Mr. Austin said in his speech. He answered questions afterwards, adding, “Once they pick up the phone, maybe we can get some work done.”
Despite frosty military relations, progress has been made in reopening talks between Beijing and Washington. China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao recently visited the United States. President Biden’s national security adviser conversations last month with a senior Chinese diplomat, indicating that both sides want to temper the rancor.
But the accumulated antagonism between China and the United States on security issues — including Taiwan, technological rivalries, building U.S. alliances in Asia and China’s military buildup — is harder to overcome.
“I think the economic situation in China has alarmed Xi to some extent.” Orville Shellsaid the director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York in a telephone interview. “But I don’t think his underlying assumptions about the animosity of our relationship have changed.”
General Li, who was appointed to his current position in March, was brought down sanction by Washington in 2018 about buying Russian fighter jets and a surface-to-air missile system, and China has said that punishment is the reason for its refusal to meet with Mr. Austin. Pentagon officials say the sanction should not hinder talks and that avoiding or defusing potential crises is made more difficult by the Chinese military’s unwillingness to communicate frequently and quickly. General Li will speak at the forum on Sunday.
Bonnie Glaser, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at Germany’s Marshall Fund, said China is particularly angry at increased US aid to Taiwan, and also sees the withholding of dialogue as a way to warn the United States.
“They want to get our attention,” she said, adding that Beijing may see no value in reviving military talks. “The Chinese – and have been for a long time – are really not interested in risk mitigation measures,” she said, “because they think we will be more prudent by maintaining a certain level of risk.”
Mr. Austin planned to talk to General Li about the risks of “unsafe and unprofessional behavior”, as well as China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan and other regional and global security issues, a senior Pentagon official said. The official cited a crisis when a Chinese warplane collided with a US surveillance aircraft, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the US plane to land on a Chinese island, where the 24 crew members were held for 11 days.
Zhao Xiaozhuo, a senior colonel in China’s People’s Liberation Army who attended the Singapore forum, said the US calls for “guard rails” over encounters between military aircraft and ships could be used as an excuse to legitimize US surveillance of China.
“Crisis management is a good thing,” he said in an English-language interview. But U.S. military ships and planes often kept watch near China’s coast, he said. “The guardrails the United States prefers, in my opinion, is to legitimize what the United States has done in its provocative behavior toward China.”
Any serious conflict between Beijing and Washington would likely stem from their smoldering regional disputes rather than the isolated maneuvers of individual planes and ships. Those risks are mainly concentrated in the South China Sea and Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing says is part of its territory and must eventually accept unification.
Beijing says it won’t rule out military might to enforce its claim on Taiwan, and the buildup of China’s armed forces has led some pundits and even US military commanders to speculate that Mr. Xi could try to conquer the island within a few years. However, many experts believe that China still faces formidable obstacles to an armed takeover of power across the Taiwan Strait. about 81 miles wide at the narrowest point.
Yet China’s growing capabilities make deterring potential military action increasingly difficult for Taiwan’s armed forces and their US partners, many of whom have significantly increased their own military budgets. The United States has legally promised to help Taiwan defend itself, but is under no obligation to directly engage in a possible war over the island, though President Biden has suggested several times that it intervene.
“Deterrence is strong today and it is our job to keep it that way,” said Mr Austin. “Make no mistake: a conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating.”
