US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin yesterday hailed a “new era of security” in the Asia-Pacific region, as Washington bolsters its network of alliances aimed at countering China’s growing military might and influence.
From Japan to Australia, the US has been deepening defense ties across the region, ramping up joint military exercises and regularly deploying warships and fighter jets in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea — infuriating Beijing.
Responding to Austin, Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng (景建峰) accused the US of seeking to build “an Asia-Pacific version of NATO,” and described the superpower as the “greatest challenge to regional peace and stability.”
Photo: Bloomberg
In the past three years, Austin said there had been a “new convergence around nearly all aspects of security” in the Asia-Pacific region, where there was a shared understanding of “the power of partnership.”
“This new convergence is producing a stronger, more resilient and more capable network of partnerships and that is defining a new era of security in the Indo-Pacific” region, Austin told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
However, it was not “about imposing one country’s will” or “bullying or coercion,” Austin said, in an apparent shot at China, which has increased its saber rattling over Taiwan and grown more confident in pressing its claims in the South China Sea.
“This new convergence is about coming together and not splitting apart,” Austin said. “It’s about the free choices of sovereign states.”
The Shangri-La Dialogue, a major security forum attended by defense officials from around the world, has become a barometer of US-China relations in the past few years.
This year’s edition comes a week after China held military drills around Taiwan and warned of war following the inauguration of President William Lai (賴清德), who Beijing has described as a “dangerous separatist.”
Taiwan is one of the thorniest disputes in US-China relations.
Austin on Friday met with Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) for the first substantive face-to-face talks between the two countries’ defense heads in 18 months.
Beijing scrapped military communications with Washington in 2022 in response to then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing were further stoked by issues including an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over US airspace, a meeting between then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and then-US House speaker Kevin McCarthy, and US military aid for Taipei.
Friday’s meeting offered hopes of further military dialogue that could help prevent issues from spinning out of control.
Austin said the US and China would resume military-to-military communications “in the coming months,” while Beijing hailed the “stabilizing” security relations between the countries.
“I told Minister Dong that if he calls me on an urgent matter, I will answer the phone,” Austin said yesterday. “And I certainly hope that he’ll do the same.”
The Asia-Pacific region remained Washington’s “priority theater of operations,” he said, adding that “the United States can be secure only if Asia is.”
“We are all in and we’re not going anywhere,” he said.
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