Unilateral change to the status quo on Taiwan “would be unwelcome and ill-advised,' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, right, with his Vietnamese counterpart in Singapore on June 10. SHENZHEN, China — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin insisted that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not shifted, even as he invoked parallels between the East Asian security situation and Ukraine while speaking at a defense summit in Singapore.
Still, Austin invoked parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific during a speech before a packed room. He positioned issues such as Taiwan as part of a broader struggle of worldviews and said Washington would continue to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific, which he called the “priority theater of operations” for the United States.“The Ukraine crisis poses some urgent questions for us all,” he said.
“Nobody should force binary choices on the region,” he said. “Our fellow Indo-Pacific nations should be free to choose.” Many Southeast Asian countries — including summit host Singapore — have said they do not wish to pick between the United States, the region’s traditional security guarantor, and China, their top trading partner.Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe is scheduled to make a rebuttal Sunday morning with a speech outlining China’s vision of regional security. Beijing has long argued that China is trying to make a peaceful rise and says the United States is the aggressor.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fanned fears that China may make a similar move on Taiwan, the self-governing island that it claims as part of its territory. Such an invasion seems unlikely in the near term, security experts say, but it remains a closely watched potential flash point that could draw the United States into conflict with China.
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