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By STUART LAU
with PHELIM KINE
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WELCOME TO CHINA WATCHER. Your correspondent Stuart Lau has this Tuesday edition for you from the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore, with everything you need to know about the three-day forum where U.S., Chinese, European and Asian security chiefs met for conclaves, consultations and contestations. Phelim Kine will be with you on Thursday.
FIRST, A SCOOP: Chinese Premier Li Qiang has confirmed he’ll be visiting Paris and attending a summit for "new global financial pact" on June 22 and 23, three people with knowledge of the programme told POLITICO's Élisa Bertholomey, Giorgio Leali and China Watcher. The summit was conceived by President Emmanuel Macron as a new way of rethinking the West's relationship with developing countries. Li, who became China's No 2 official earlier this year, will visit Berlin to host a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — alongside several ministers from both sides — before his Paris trip.
SHANGRI-LA POSTCARD
BATTLESHIPS: As Chinese and American defense chiefs gathered in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, their warships were eyeballing each other at close range in the Taiwan Strait. A U.S. guided-missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate had a close encounter with a Chinese battleship between the self-governed island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and the Chinese mainland.
Near miss: The Chinese vessel overtook the American ship and then veered across its bow at a distance of just 150 yards, in an "unsafe manner," according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Despite the escalating tension, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu didn’t manage to sit down for talks in Singapore. The Chinese delegation declined a bilateral meeting, on the basis that Li remained under U.S. sanctions.
Auk-ward: The two only shook hands before the gala dinner on Friday, when they exchanged “nice to meet you” greetings, before sitting around the same table for their meal. They were separated by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Singapore’s Acting PM Lawrence Wong.
— Pentagon view: “We won't be deterred by dangerous operational behavior at sea or in international airspace,” said Austin. Despite the naval close-call, the U.S. secretary played down the potential for military clashes. “I don’t think that a conflict is inevitable, nor do I think at this point that it’s imminent,” Austin said. “We are doing everything in our power to make sure that we maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
— Beijing retorts: The next day, it was the Chinese turn. The message from Li, son of a Red Army veteran, was combative. “We will strive for the prospects 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 opponents and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity regardless of any cost.”
These are just the old lines from the Chinese playbook, you might say. But Li also issued a vivid warning to unfriendly warships sailing through the Taiwan Strait. "As the lyrics of a well-known Chinese song go: 'When friends visit us, we welcome them with fine wine. When jackals or wolves come, we will face them with shotguns.” What a lullaby.
SECRET CONCLAVE: Senior Chinese and American officials did meet on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, in the format of a secret gathering of two dozen of the world’s major intelligence agencies, Reuters reported. Such events have been organized by Singapore for “several years” but have not been widely reported. The U.S. was represented by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, while China was among the other countries represented.
EURO-SHADE: The Estonian leader and defense ministers from the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Portugal, as well as EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, all attended the Singapore pow-wow. Remarkably, Beijing has managed to piss off a lot of the senior EU officials:
— China’s suggestion is ‘ridiculous’: Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, had a blunt answer for a Chinese military officer who suggested NATO may not necessarily be a defensive alliance. “How does that really play out?” Kallas asked. “NATO invades a country? And then we share it amongst ourselves — so you get a bigger piece, we get a smaller piece? I mean, that is ridiculous.”
— ‘Very false, your excellency’: Seasoned Chinese diplomat Cui Tiankai earned a slapdown from Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren. Cui said Ukraine’s current situation proved that Europe had failed to establish a workable security architecture. “I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it," Ollongren told China Watcher right after she made an intervention to counter Cui’s view. "It's very, very false," Ollongren said. You can read the full story here.
— KAPUTT! German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who was allowed to meet Li, told the Chinese to stop recruiting German airforce pilots to train their own, referring to new findings on this subject revealed by Spiegel magazine. "I have made it clear that I expect this policy to be stopped immediately," Pistorius told reporters afterwards. He added that the Chinese defense minister had not denied the practice of hiring former German military pilots, but played down its significance.
UKRAINE'S PLEA: In an interview with China Watcher, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Havrylov urged China not to give Russia any military support. Asked about reports of China's sale of drones to Russia, Havrylov said it has only concerned "commercial drones."
Don't cross the red line: "Yes, they continue to sell just regular commercial things to support the Russian economy. It's okay, it's understandable, but we hope they will keep the promises not to sell Russia any weaponry, like Iran. That's important," he said in Singapore.
MACRON’S UNLIKELY ALLY
ELBRIDGE COLBY, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Trump administration and best known for his recent call on Washington to ditch Ukraine and focus on Taiwan, sat down with China Watcher. He explained why the U.S. shouldn’t rely on Europe when it comes to Taiwan.
In Colby’s view, the U.S. should have serious doubts about Europe’s ability to join painful economic sanctions against China in the event of war against Taiwan, which he said is currently the premise on which U.S. engagement with Europe is based.
“Let’s say, the Chinese attack Taiwan, they successfully push back the American military and they seize the island of Taiwan, and the Americans said, ‘Oh, please join us in a massive economic war against China to try to convince Beijing to give up Taiwan — at the cost of your economic well-being.’ Are they likely to join in something that, frankly, the Europeans are likely to think is not going to work very well?,” he asked. “If you look at their interests, they’re already taking huge body blows economically, because of decoupling from the Russian economy.”
“I don’t think the Europeans are very likely to join in such an economic campaign that would likely be futile. And that’s where Macron is doing us a favor,” he says. “Because Macron is basically communicating that we should not rely on the Europeans for something that wouldn’t actually matter anyway.”
— The context here: French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with POLITICO in April, said that on the issue of Taiwan, Europe should not “become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda.”
No plaything: “Macron kind of suggested … that the Europeans would somehow kowtow to Beijing because the Americans are more focused on Asia. Now, that’s not in Europe’s interest either,” Colby said. “I don’t think Europe has an interest in being a plaything, economically or otherwise, of Beijing.”
Paging Lithuania and the Czech Republic: Asked about Eastern European countries calling for deeper ties with Taiwan, he commented: “I admire their principle, but I don’t think that the United States should or likely would, over time, sort of pay back symbolic gestures for Taiwan that anger China.”
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
—LAWMAKER DECRIES BEIJING'S 'UNBELIEVABLE AGGRESSION': House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) accused Beijing of "unbelievable aggression" toward the U.S. Turner cited "the balloon that flew over the United States, the Chinese police stations, and the aggressiveness against both our planes and ships" as proof of China's ill intent in an interview on ABC's "The Week" on Sunday. Turner's comments followed footage released by the Pentagon on Sunday of a near-miss between the USS Chun-Hoon and a Chinese naval vessel in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.
—KRITENBRINK'S BEIJING TRIP TIMING DRAWS FIRE: Assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink landed in Beijing on Sunday with National Security Council senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran. The timing of Kritenbrink and Beran's arrival in Beijing —the 34th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Massacre — raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill. “They're handing Beijing a massive victory in its long-standing attempt to erase its day of infamy," chair of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the CCP Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) tweeted on Sunday. "While in Beijing, the Assistant Secretary raised human rights in his meetings," a State Department official responded.
—SULLIVAN OFFERS TO TALK NUKES: National security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration is willing to engage in "unconditional" talks with both Russia and China to address the global danger of their growing nuclear arsenals. In a speech to the Arms Control Association in Washington on Friday, Sullivan expressed concern about Beijing's moves to triple the size of its nuclear arsenal to up to 1,500 warheads by 2035.
The Biden administration is willing to wait out Beijing's selective freeze on high level diplomatic dialogue with U.S. officials. “We just say we're ready to talk when you're ready to talk," Sullivan said. “Then, at some point, we will see President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping come back together again," Sullivan said on Sunday in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
—TAIWAN TRADE PACT: U.S. and Taiwanese officials inked the first phase of multi-part trade deal last week. The first stage of the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade includes agreements on anti-corruption measures and good regulatory practices. It will help "strengthen and deepen" economic and trade ties, U.S. Trade Representative spokesperson Sam Michel said in a statement on Thursday.
Beijing had a different take. "Under the disguise of trade cooperation, the so-called 'Initiative' is just a U.S. tool to rip Taiwan off," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday.
—GALLAGHER FLAGS CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE SECURITY RISK: A Chinese government-backed language and cultural center at New York State's Alfred University poses a serious national security risk, Rep. Mike Gallagher warned last week. The school "continues to host a Confucius institute on campus and retain close ties with a Chinese research university, while receiving a $13.5 million grant from the Department of Defense for sensitive hypersonic weapons research," Gallagher said in a statement published on Thursday. That creates the potential for Alfred University inadvertently facilitating the construction of "Chinese 'hard power' weapons that could be used against Americans in a future conflict," he said. Neither the Pentagon nor Alfred's President Mark Zupan responded to requests for comment.
TRANSLATING CHINA
TABOO: For those in China who still remember the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square bloody crackdown, the date is otherwise known as May 35 — for the actual date itself has become a censored taboo on social media. In Hong Kong, public commemorations are no longer allowed.
Diplomatic deletions: Chinese social media platform Weibo were busy monitoring — and deleting — posts by Western embassies. The Brits put out the front page of Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily on June 4, 1989. Deleted. The Poles called it a day of freedom. Deleted. The EU delegation published a post saying, “Lest we forget.” Deleted.
Still burning: There are some acts of remembrance the Hong Kong police can’t extinguish: U.S., EU and other consulate offices in Hong Kong have lit candles in their windows.
U.N. ALARMED: “We are alarmed by reports of detentions in HKSAR linked to June 4 anniversary. We urge the release of anyone detained for exercising freedom of expression & peaceful assembly,” U.N. Human Rights said in a tweet.
MORE HEADLINES THIS WEEK
BLOOMBERG: China mulls new property support package to boost economy
WALL STREET JOURNAL: China cracks down on surge in AI-driven fraud
ALJAZEERA: China’s scaling back spending in Southeast Asia
EL PAÍS: China’s growing power in Latin America (in English)
MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Diagnosing Iran's emerging pivot toward Russia and China
MANY THANKS TO: Editor Tim Ross and producer Giulia Poloni.
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