FP This Week: The View From Shangri-La

FP's editor in chief reports from Singapore.

JUNE 5, 2023  |  VIEW IN BROWSER  |  SUBSCRIBE Today's FP This Week features a dispatch from FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal. Every year, the world's top defense officials fly to Singapore for a security conference known as the Shangri-La Dialogue. I was in the summit's main conference hall this past weekend as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, delivered dueling speeches about the world order and security in the Indo-Pacific region. The two were talking at each other, not with each other. Days earlier, Beijing turned down a White House request for a private meeting, citing U.S. sanctions on Li. In his speech at the conference hall, Austin criticized Li's refusal to meet. "Dialogue is not a reward. It is a necessity," Austin said. "I am deeply concerned that [Beijing] has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries." Li, who spoke the next day, slammed what he called a "Cold War mentality" and the formation of "small cliques," referring to the United States' growing security partnerships in Asia. This was Li's first international speech as defense minister, and so all of us were watching him closely. There were no surprises as he denounced a bullying and hegemonic America, a trope that has become familiar from Chinese officials in recent times. [For more on this, watch my CNN segment, and join me for our next China-focused FP Live this Wednesday with China Brief author James Palmer and the Spectator's Cindy Yu.] The relative lack of high-level dialogue between the United States and China is increasingly worrying from any vantage point. In a reminder that this kind of heated rhetoric has consequences, as delegates mingled in Singapore, a Chinese naval ship dangerously cut across the path of a U.S. guided missile destroyer, which was conducting a joint exercise in the international waters of the Taiwan Strait. I was heartened to learn there were indeed some U.S.-China talks going on in Singapore. We just weren't supposed to know about them. Reuters revealed that spy chiefs—including ones from Washington and Beijing—held secret meetings at a separate venue as policymakers took the stage at the Shangri-La hotel. This report comes amid news that CIA chief William Burns made a secret visit to Beijing last month. While the U.S.-China relationship understandably dominated public and private discussions in Singapore, the war in Ukraine was also a recurring topic. Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto proposed a plan for a cease-fire followed by a referendum. 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Hal Brands's essay, pre-released from the summer 2023 issue of Foreign Policy, examines the impact of this alliance on U.S. interests and highlights the need for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to counterbalance the growing influence of Russia and China in the region.  Subscribe now to get your own copy of the Summer 2023 issue of FP magazine. FP Live Are America and Europe Aligned on China? June 7, 2023 | 11 a.m. EDT The war in Ukraine has propelled the United States and Europe closer on a variety of foreign-policy issues. But do Washington and Brussels agree on how to deal with Beijing's growing clout? Join FP's Ravi Agrawal for a discussion with experts on both sides of the Atlantic: Cindy Yu, an assistant editor of the Spectator and host of its podcast Chinese Whispers; and James Palmer, author of FP's weekly China Brief newsletter. Register here. Inside the U.S.-China Tech War June 20, 2023 | 11 a.m. EDT Where is the new tech war between the United States and China headed? 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SUBSCRIBE NOW Exercise Your Mind A United Nations committee met in Paris on Monday to work on a landmark treaty that would bring an end to what? Nuclear proliferation  Global plastic pollution Coal-fired power plants Global anti-LGBTQ legislation You can find the answer to this question at the end of this email. Click here to take the rest of our weekly news quiz. Shadow Government: Why Biden's China Reset Is a Bad Idea Now is not the time for the United States to pursue détente with China, as the Biden administration has been trying to do for several weeks now. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held intensive talks with senior Chinese official Wang Yi in Vienna in mid-May, followed by a flurry of U.S. attempts at engagement in the military and commercial fields, as well as at the presidential level. Today, a secret visit by CIA Director William Burns to Beijing in May also became public. The administration's logic seems to be that if the United States pursues sustained, high-level outreach with Beijing, it will be able to find common ground on divisive issues in trade, climate, and security policy after a prolonged state of hostility between the two powers. The general consensus in Washington seems to be that this is wise, not least because the United States needs Chinese goodwill to eventually bring Russia to the peace table in Ukraine. That's what European allies have been telling the administration for many weeks. There also appears to be a political calculus: Going into an election year, U.S. President Joe Biden may reckon that he will need Chinese President Xi Jinping's assistance with Russian President Vladimir Putin if, as some on his team appear to fear, Ukraine underperforms in its counteroffensive and U.S. voters balk at the prospect of a protracted conflict. 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