Competing tensions over America’s global power were brought into stark relief at a security conference on Sunday, where China accused the United States of stoking tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea, and President Volodymyr Zelensky Ukraine sought greater support for its beleaguered country.
These scenes played out at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security forum in Singapore that has long been a barometer of the ups and downs of US-China relations.
This year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun held talks, something the two countries’ top defense officials have not always done in This meeting. But Admiral Dong made clear that China remained deeply antagonistic to American influence and alliance-building across Asia, especially American support for Taiwan, the island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.
“These evil intentions are dragging Taiwan into the dangers of war,” Admiral Dong said at the meeting after making an indirect but unambiguous reference to US military and political support for Taiwan. “Anyone who dares to separate Taiwan from China will be torn to pieces and seek their own destruction.”
Admiral Dong’s warnings, like other combative comments from Chinese military officials at the meeting, reflected how Beijing and Washington remain deeply divided on some key regional issues, even as they discuss ways to prevent military frictions at sea and in the air lead to a crisis.
Last month, China held two days of threatening military exercises around Taiwan, accusing its new president, Lai Ching-te, of trying to promote the island’s independence. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party has asserted that Taiwan has a separate status, although Lai has indicated that he will not seek outright independence.
Austin warned in a speech Saturday against “actions in this region that erode the status quo and threaten peace and stability,” an indirect reference to Chinese pressure on Taiwan. Austin also said that “we all share an interest in ensuring that the South China Sea remains open and free,” despite Chinese territorial claims across the sea.
But Admiral Dong accused an unnamed Southeast Asian country (clearly the Philippines) of stirring up trouble over disputed islands and shoals in the sea, and again suggested that the United States was the real culprit.
“A certain country, incited by external forces, abandoned bilateral agreements, reneged on its promises and took premeditated measures to provoke incidents,” he said in his speech to diplomats, military officers and experts, many of them from Asian countries. “China has exercised sufficient restraint in responding to these provocations, but this restraint has its limits.”
The Philippines has been at odds with China over their rival claims in the South China Sea, in an area Manila calls the West Philippine Sea. In 2016, an international tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea rejected China’s extensive claims in the South China Sea, which included sandbars near the Philippines. Beijing ignored that ruling.
At the Singapore meeting, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. warned Friday that his government could turn to the United States for support under a mutual defense treaty if a Chinese ship caused the death of a Filipino sailor. .
A US official who heard Admiral Dong’s speech took issue with his description of China and its People’s Liberation Army as innocent victims in regional disputes. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss geopolitical tensions, said the admiral’s claim contradicted the Chinese military’s “coercive activity” in the region.
Even in Singapore, Austin and other Western officials were reminded that Ukraine’s more than two-year war against the Russian invasion continues to demand the attention of its leaders and the resources of its taxpayers.
Zelensky addressed the meeting on Sunday afternoon. A Pentagon spokesman said Austin had met with him on the sidelines to discuss the current battlefield situation and to assure him of the United States’ commitment to ensuring Ukraine had what it needed to defend itself.
“It is a reminder to countries in Asia and the Indo-Pacific that the war taking place in Ukraine is not just a European problem. It is a problem for the world,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the US German Marshall Fund.
“Zelensky recognizes that he has to go out and remind the world to continue supporting the fight his country is undertaking,” said Glaser, who was at the Singapore conference.
In the face of Russian military advances in his country, Zelensky has been urging the United States and Europe to increase support for his forces and overcome fears of allowing Ukraine to fire American missiles and other weapons at military targets inside Russia.
Zelensky said on social media that he had met with members of the U.S. Congress at the meeting in Singapore, including Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, a Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Zelensky thanked him for helping secure approval in April of additional military assistance for Ukraine, but also suggested more was needed.
“We talked about the frontline situation and military assistance, in particular additional systems and missiles to strengthen our air defense,” Zelensky said.