China and the U.S. trade threats in Singapore as Russia slowly bleeds Ukraine

(Originally published June 13 in “What in the World“) The top warriors from China and the United States met in Singapore and demonstrated just how war-like they could sound.

After a face-to-face meeting at which they agreed to step up communications and which was described as having lowered tensions, the two reverted to more bellicose postures for the benefit of regional peers. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised attendees Saturday at an annual defense conference for Southeast Asia that the U.S. would counter Beijing’s growing influence in the region and accused China of increasingly provocative behavior.

“We do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO, or a region split into hostile blocs,” Austin told attendees at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies. “We will defend our interests without flinching, but we’ll also work toward our vision for this region—one of expanding security, one of increased cooperation, and not one of growing division.”

China’s defense minister Gen. Wei Fenghe responded Sunday by saying the U.S. was interfering in China’s “internal” affairs with Taiwan and in the South China Sea. “Some people in the U.S. try to suppress China on all fronts. If you want confrontation, we will fight to the end,” Wei said.

Wei acknowledged that China was beefing up its nuclear arsenal, but only to defend itself. “We do not provoke trouble, but we will not flinch in the face of provocation. We will not bully others, but we will not allow others to bully us,” he said. Partly because of China’s buildup, the global nuclear arsenal is set to resume rising for the first time since the end of the Cold War, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

China and the United States consider Taiwan an autonomous part of China, though Beijing sees it as a “renegade province” that must ultimately be reunited with the People’s Republic, by force if necessary. “Let me be clear: If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight. We will fight at all costs, and we will fight to the very end,” Wei said.

China also claims sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea from Hainan Island south to Indonesia and has militarized reefs and atolls that are variously in waters belonging to Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It says Washington’s so-called “Quad” alliance between Australia, India, and Japan, represents an attempt to divide the region and turn it against China as part of an unjustified effort to contain the growth of China’s diplomatic and military influence alongside its economic expansion.

On the World War’s Western front, meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy are planning to travel to Kyiv this week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky is desperately seeking yet more Western arms to reverse Russian gains in securing control of the eastern Donbas region. Ukrainian forces are running out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons they’ve been supplied by their fellow European veterans of the Soviet bloc, and lack the training to use much of the NATO equipment they’ve been provided.

It’s unclear what the three European leaders have on their agenda for Kyiv beyond a poll-boosting photo op. The three nations haven’t been as generous so far with arms shipments as have the United Kingdom and the U.S. But it’s becoming clearer as Russia cements control over Donbas that Ukraine’s Western allies either need to escalate their assistance and risk all-out war with Russia, convince Zelensky to negotiate by ceding territory, or settle for a bloody war of attrition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, having witnessed the West’s pathetic resolve in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, appears convinced public support for Ukraine will fizzle as fast as its lockdowns and mask mandates as the war inflicts more painful inflation and recession. Yale history professor Timothy Snyder says Putin is using Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to help create global instability and starve the West into submission.

The war has already slipped below domestic developments—inflation, gun control and the Jan. 6 hearings—on most U.S. and U.K. news sites, suggesting readers, if not just editors, are now bored with the war. The initiative thus belongs to Zelensky: one provocation on Russian soil and he may be able to force the West to back him unconditionally.

Whatever happens, Europe will never be the same. NATO is now on war footing against possible Russian aggression. Indeed, some are now seeing Putin’s remarks last week about Peter the Great’s territorial gains not as a signal of his ambitions in Ukraine, but as a signal of his goal of conquering the Baltic states. Sweden, which has applied for membership, is now conducting military exercises with the U.S. on the strategically vital island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.