U.S. says it plans to continue patrolling by China
SINGAPORE — The United States pressed China on two fronts this weekend, warning both of the near-term risks of military mishaps and of the looming dangers of a nuclear arms rivalry, prompting a vehement accusation from a Chinese general that the U.S. was stoking confrontation.
In speeches from President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Friday and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday in Singapore, the Biden administration sought to draw China toward talks on the rising military perils.
Austin also indicated that the United States would keep operating military ships and planes in international seas and skies near China despite recent close calls with Chinese forces and also keep providing support to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China sees as its own territory. Both are sore points with China.
“We won’t be deterred by dangerous operational behavior at sea or in international airspace,” Austin told a gathering of military officials and experts at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting in Singapore.
Speaking in Washington, Sullivan laid out Biden’s ideas to deal with a world in which “cracks in our post-Cold War nuclear foundation are substantial.” Russia has been making more frequent, although usually vague, threats about tactical nuclear weapons, and China is building up its nuclear arsenal. Sullivan said the United States was modernizing its own nuclear weapons, but it would not plunge into a race to build more warheads than Russia and China combined.
“We’re also ready to engage China without preconditions — helping ensure that competition is managed and competition does not veer into conflict,” he said.
The tableau of two of Biden’s most senior officials focusing on the dangers of military rivalry with China illustrated the extent of this geopolitical rift, even as the U.S. and China reopen discussion on trade and diplomatic issues.
China’s recent economic woes were one factor prompting its top leader, Xi Jinping, to take a milder diplomatic demeanor this year, Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, said in a telephone interview. “But I don’t think his underlying assumptions about the hostility of our relationship have shifted,” Schell said.
Highlighting that tension, the Chinese military delegation at the Singapore meeting called a news conference after Austin’s speech to take issue with it.
Lt. Gen. Jing Jianfeng from the People’s Liberation Army told reporters U.S. weapons sales and other support for Taiwan amounted to encouraging independence for the island.
“The Taiwan issue is a core interest for China, and we will not brook any compromise or concessions,” Jing said.