Just days after the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs held “constructive” in-person talks, the two used speeches at Asia’s top regional security conference over the weekend to deliver markedly different messages — an indication that the two superpowers continue to talk past each other amid their escalating rivalry.
While U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hailed Washington’s deepening network of security partnerships as defining a “new era of security” in the Indo-Pacific, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun used his speech Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore to denounce the formation of “exclusive military alliances” and attempts to create “bloc confrontation.”
“Various small circles targeting other countries cannot make our region safer and can only cause more tension,” Dong said in his debut speech at the forum, accusing Washington of “hegemonic behavior.”