China’s new defence chief warned on Sunday of a “whirlpool of conflict” unless Western militaries stay away from Chinese waters and airspace after Beijing ordered a warship to cut across a US Navy destroyer sailing through the Taiwan Strait.
General Li Shangfu’s comments were delivered in a hardline speech denouncing a new “Cold War” mentality in the Indo-Pacific and doubling down on threats to invade Taiwan.
His speech came after a Chinese navy ship on Saturday sailed within 140 metres (153 yards) of the US Navy’s guided missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon on a freedom of navigation mission with Canada’s HMCS Montreal.
The US military accused the Chinese navy ship of cutting across the bow of the Chung-Hoon twice, forcing it to slow down to avoid collision. Video taken by Canadian news outlet Global News showed the Chinese warship speeding towards the American vessel.
It was the second close encounter between the two militaries in less than 10 days after a Chinese fighter jet swerved in front of a US surveillance plane over the South China Sea, in what the Pentagon called an “unnecessarily aggressive manoeuvre”.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s most important security conference, Gen Li blamed foreign powers for the incident, accusing them of “hegemony of navigation” and warning them to stay out of China’s backyard.
“Why did all of those incidents happen in areas near China, not in areas near other countries?” He said, adding that the best way to avoid such encounters was for other country’s naval vessels and fighter jets to stay away.
“For China we always say mind your own business…Take good care of your own territorial airspace and waters. If that is the case then I don’t think there will be future problems,” said General Li.
“As defence minister every day I see a lot of information about foreign vessels and fighter jets coming to areas near our territory. They are not here for innocent passage. They are here for provocation.”
His speech was followed by a pledge from Germany to send two warships to the Indo-Pacific in 2024. Defence minister Boris Pistorius said the deployments were not directed against any nation, a remark apparently addressed at China.
“To the contrary: they are dedicated to the protection of the rules-based international order that we all signed up to and which we all should benefit from – be it in the Mediterranean, in the Bay of Bengal, or in the South China Sea.”
Ties between Washington and Beijing are badly strained over a range of issues, including democratically governed Taiwan, territorial disputes in the South China Sea and President Joe Biden’s restrictions on semiconductor chip exports.
A senior US state department official arrived in Beijing on Sunday with meetings planned for the coming week as Washington seeks to boost communication.
Tiananmen Square
Their arrival coincides with the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown by Chinese troops on demonstrators in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that rights groups say killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, issued a statement on Saturday marking the anniversary of the crackdown, saying, “The victims’ bravery will not be forgotten and continues to inspire advocates for these principles around the world.”
In Hong Kong, at least six people were bundled into police vehicles for holding public commemorations. Hong Kong police also detained Alexandra Wong, a prominent democracy activist better known as “Grandma Wong’’.
The US state department trip to China follows a visit last month to China by William Burns, the CIA director. A US official said Burns had “emphasised the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels” in meetings with his Chinese counter
Gen Li, who remains under sanction by Washington over a 2018 purchase of Russian weaponry, had said while China was open for dialogue with the West “mutual respect should prevail over bullying and hegemony”.
He refused to meet with Lloyd Austin, the US defence chief, although he did hold talks with Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, and other senior global military officials on the sidelines of the weekend conference.
Mr Austin, who did shake hands with his Chinese counterpart over a Friday evening dinner, said he was “deeply concerned” about the lack of dialogue and urged Beijing to “pick up the phone”.
In his own speech on Saturday, he criticised China’s “risky intercepts” of US and allied aircraft in international airspace and said the US did not seek confrontation but “will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion”.
Gen Li admitted that China’s relations with the US were at “record lows” and that they needed to “find the right way to get along” to avoid a severe conflict that would be an “unbearable disaster for the world”.
But he went on to list familiar grievances against “some country” that “incited counter revolutions and proxy wars in different regions, created chaos and turbulence and just walked away leaving a mess behind”, adding: “We must never allow such things to happen again in the Asia Pacific.”
The same “some country” was “expanding military bases, reinforcing military presence and intensifying an arms race in the region,” that was “designed to make an enemy, stoke confrontation, fuel the fire and fish in troubled waters”, he said.
Chilling warning
The defence chief reserved his most chilling warning over the democratic island of Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party claims as its own territory even though it has never ruled there and an overwhelming majority of 24 million Taiwanese do not want to belong to China.
The potential for a catastrophic war over the future of Taiwan has sparked alarm around the world, and General Li made little effort to assuage fears.
“As the lyrics of a well-known Chinese song goes, when friends visit us, we will welcome them with fine wine. When jackals or wolves come, we will face them with shotguns,” he said as he turned to Beijing’s intentions for Taiwan.
“We will strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and greatest efforts but we make no promise to renounce the use of force,” he said
“If anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will not hesitate for a second. We will fear no opponent and resolutely safeguard our national sovereignty and territorial integrity regardless of any cost.”
The Pentagon voiced concern on Sunday over the Chinese military’s “increasingly risky and coercive activities” in Asia.
“We remain concerned about the PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army) increasingly risky and coercive activities in the region, including in recent days,” said Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder, who is with Mr Austin at a security conference in Singapore.
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