Analysis: U.S. Defense Secretary, China Trade Barbs Over Taiwan

TaiwanPlus News

Top military officials gathered in Singapore over the weekend for the Shangri-La Dialogue. During the forum, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned that China's threat to Taiwan is a threat to the whole world. Although China's defense minister did not attend, China clapped back in a statement, saying Washington is deliberately antagonizing Beijing.

Transcript

00:00The Chinese Defence Minister skipped the forum for the first time since 2019, sending a delegate

00:06instead. What's Beijing signalling about its commitment to regional dialogue?

00:11One of the logical readings would be that the Shangri-La dialogue or appearance at the Shangri-La

00:16dialogue and having the bilateral meetings at the Shangri-La dialogue is not a priority to Beijing

00:21right now, especially for the Defence Minister. But of course there's no independent confirmation,

00:25there remains speculation, some guess that there could be some sort of internal turmoil within the

00:32PLA as we've seen with the recent purges of top PLA officials, military leaders. There is of course

00:38the possibility that the Chinese Defence Minister doesn't want to be put in a situation where he

00:43has to deal with US Defence Secretary Pete Hexeth at a time when negotiations between the US and the PRC

00:50are still at a fairly tense level, even though there's some abatement of the tariffs for the

00:55immediate period. How are US-China tensions being discussed at the Shangri-La dialogue this year?

01:02So US-China tensions are in the backdrop, they don't dominate everything, they do come out in

01:09certain areas. For instance, when the PRC talks about the South China Sea dispute or West Philippine Sea

01:16dispute it has with the Philippines, the PRC Beijing tends to blame the US for manipulating Manila,

01:24although there's no evidence for that. Now at the same time, PRC also looks at the US as a force for

01:31instability in the region and accuses US-aligned system for being destabilizing. The US, for its

01:36part, will talk about the PRC actions in the South China Sea around Taiwan and also in the East China Sea

01:44as potentially provocative and potentially dangerous. Taiwan is often talked about at these

01:50forums. What are the conversations regarding Taiwan this year? There have been several conversations

01:56about Taiwan. One, drawing a link between security and stability in Europe with security and stability

02:04in Asia. So there's a comparison between what's happening in Ukraine and what's happening across

02:08the Taiwan Strait. Now, there's also been talk about how standing up against the Russians in Ukraine

02:15is a matter of democracy versus autocracy, rule of law versus authoritarianism, and that parallel has

02:22been made with regard to Taiwan. We also saw a big European presence this year. What are the Europeans

02:28bringing to the table? So the Europeans in particular, I suppose this year, marked by French President

02:35Macron's presence at the Shangri-La as the keynote speaker, is an indicator of Europe's attempt and

02:43sort of interest in being a major international security player. At the same time, the European

02:50presence also represents East Asia's efforts to branch out and look at more partners on the security

02:56front in addition to the United States and to some degree for some states, China, in order to have,

03:02I guess, a more balanced portfolio in terms of security cooperation.

03:05And now,

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