Chinese forces are conducting live-fire drills in the South China Sea, greeting Vice President Kamala Harris with a show of force even as U.S. officials attempt to assemble an international coalition to manage prospective threats from Beijing.
“They’re clearly trying to send a message of force and strength … and try to see if they can intimidate smaller neighbors,” the Observer Research Foundation’s Raji Pillai, a former official with India’s National Security Council, told the Washington Examiner.
That display is a military corollary to other Chinese diplomatic efforts that draw a contrast with the United States as officials around the world focus on the chaotic conclusion to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s rapid defeat of the Afghan military in recent months. That crisis created an uncomfortable backdrop for Harris’s diplomatic foray, as she tried to fortify U.S. alliances in the face of Chinese aggression.
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“I reaffirmed in our meeting the United States’s commitment to working with our allies and partners around the Indo-Pacific to uphold the rules-based international order and freedom of navigation, including in the South China Sea,” Harris told reporters Monday in a joint press conference with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. “The reason I’m here is because the United States is a global leader, and we take that role seriously, understanding that we have many interests and priorities around the world.”
Chinese officials cited Afghanistan as a justification to deride Harris and the broader U.S. alliance network.
“What is happening in Afghanistan clearly reveals the U.S. definition of ‘rules’ and ‘order,’” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Tuesday. “This is the kind of order that the U.S. wants. It always tries to defend its selfishness and bullying and hegemonic actions by citing ‘rules’ and ‘order.’ But how many people would actually buy it?”
Lee, the Singaporean prime minister, suggested the geopolitical market for U.S. proposals is still hot — at least for now.
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“Post-Afghanistan, in the longer term, what matters is how the U.S. repositions itself in the Asia Pacific, engages the broader region, and continues the fight against terrorism because that will determine the perceptions of the countries of the U.S. global priorities and of its strategic intentions,” he said. “And the U.S. has been in the region since the [Second World War] … There have been ups and downs. There have been difficult moments. There have also been, over decades, dramatic transformations in Asia, wrought by the benign and constructive influence of the United States as a regional guarantor of security, and support of prosperity.”
