There was one brief moment earlier this month when it appeared that there were cracks forming in the icy relationship between the United States and China.
The scene was the opening dinner at a major security conference in Singapore, where Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who had been rebuffed in his request for a sideline meeting with his Chinese counterpart, spotted Gen. Li Shangfu across a crowded ballroom.
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Austin approached, smiles and handshakes were exchanged. But a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged afterward that nothing “substantive” was said.
Any illusion that there might be a thaw in the frosty relations between the two superpowers — as President Joe Biden predicted several weeks ago in Japan when he dismissed the Chinese spy balloon incident as “silly” — was shattered the very next day.
Bristling at America’s “Freedom of Navigation” missions that routinely send U.S. warships and spy planes through international waters and airspace near China, Beijing sailed one of its warships directly across the path of an American destroyer. That's the maritime equivalent of a jerk cutting you off on the freeway, forcing you to slam on your breaks.
“As a former sea captain of a similar US destroyer, it almost made my heart stop,” tweeted retired Adm. James Stavridis, who was NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 2009-13.
When it was time for his speech before the Shangri-La Dialogue, Austin was frustrated. Not just about the provocative encounter on the high seas, but also the snub from the Chinese defense minister who seemed happy to meet with other U.S. allies.
U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace tweeted a picture of his meeting with Li Shangfu and boasted of his “open and constructive dialogue” with his Chinese counterpart.
Austin called the ship shenanigans in the Taiwan Strait “aggressive and unprofessional.” Austin also accused China of “coercion and bullying.”
“I am deeply concerned that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has been unwilling to engage more seriously,” Austin said. “Make no mistake: conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating.”
“The right time to talk is now,” he continued. “Dialogue is not a reward. It is a necessity. A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for a substantive engagement.”
The following day Li addressed the gathering, and promptly blamed the U.S. for relations with China falling to what he called a “record low.”
“Who is disrupting peace in the region?” Li said, without explicitly naming the United States. “Some country has willfully interfered in other country's internal affairs and in the affairs of other countries and frequently resorted to unilateral sanctions, incursion with force.”
At the same time, Li restated China’s goal of taking over Taiwan, either by coercion or invasion.
“We make no promise to renounce the use of force,” he said unapologetically. “China must be and will be reunified.”
Many pundits observed that Austin should not have been surprised to get the cold shoulder from Li, given that he is personally under U.S. sanctions.
“What did they expect?” said commentator Fareed Zakaria on a recent podcast. “You couldn’t get a third-world country to agree [to meet] on those terms.”
“It's embarrassing, and it's pathetic,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Fox News Sunday, arguing that begging the Chinese to negotiate projects weakness. “Biden administration officials should stop chasing after their Chinese communist counterparts like lovestruck teenagers.” Cotton and other Republican defense hawks in the House and Senate have a different approach to dissuading China’s Xi Jinping from fulfilling his desire to take over Taiwan, an island of 24 million and the world’s leading producer of advanced semiconductors, by 2027 if possible.
They favor a massive U.S. military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region to convince Xi that invading Taiwan would not be worth the cost.
To that end, Republicans planned to add between $25 billion and $45 billion to Biden’s proposed $886 billion defense budget for fiscal 2024, which GOP lawmakers and even some Democrats have roundly rejected as anemic, with its mere 3.3% increase that doesn’t keep up with inflation.
But much to their chagrin, the debt ceiling deal negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this month locked in the Biden budget of $886 billion, jeopardizing their plans to buy more ships, planes, and missile defense systems to deploy near China.
"To my House colleagues, I can't believe you did this," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on the Senate floor before the bill passed.
Aware they were about to lose the final vote because of the need to avoid a disastrous default, a group of Republicans, including Graham, Cotton, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Mike Rounds (R-SD) extracted a promise from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would facilitate votes later this year for supplemental appropriations bills outside the defense budget to plus up efforts to counter China and continue funding for Ukraine.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) says he wants to see what can be done within the annual defense policy bill before seeking a supplemental measure.
“It’s all about China for me,” Rogers said, then it will be “time for us to look and see if we actually address China. If we did, fine. If we didn’t, we’ll go ahead and drop more funding.”
Any supplemental appropriation must pass both chambers, and McCarthy, feeling the wrath of members of his conservative Freedom Caucus who say he got out-negotiated by Biden, is signaling an end run around the budget limit will be a nonstarter.
“I’m not going to prejudge what some of them do, but if they think they’re writing a supplemental because they want to go around an agreement we just made, it’s not going anywhere,” McCarthy said in an interview.
That puts McCarthy on a collision course with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who is among the Republicans who want to spend billions more on defense.
“President Biden’s request for the defense budget is simply insufficient given the major challenges that our nation faces,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “In the dangerous world that surrounds us today, this is wholly inadequate. Decades after the Cold War, the famous Reagan maxim — ‘peace through strength’ — still applies.”
Biden’s negotiating team also managed to get a time bomb into the debt ceiling deal, a provision that stipulates if all 12 federal appropriations bills are not passed on time — something that hasn’t happened in years — a mandatory 1% across-the-board cut will be triggered, which would affect defense spending disproportionately.
“The way that was written is if that Congress doesn't do its work by Sept. 30, domestic spending will actually go up,” Cotton said. “That means that Chuck Schumer has an incentive to ball up the appropriation process this fall because the Democrats get more domestic spending while the Pentagon takes a real cut.”
McConnell has vowed not to let that happen.
“We have a little less than four months left in the fiscal year,” said McConnell, who has secured a commitment from the top Democrat and Republican on the Appropriations Committee to work to get all 12 full-year funding bills “processed, passed, conferenced, and signed into law before the end of September.”
The question is whether McCarthy will play ball or threaten to block bills that bust his budget deal in order to appease his far-right faction.
McCarthy’s already on record opposing any further increase in the Pentagon’s budget.
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“This is the most money we have ever spent on defense, the most money anyone in the world has ever spent on defense,” McCarthy said. “I don’t think the first answer is to do a supplemental.”
Spoken like a Biden Democrat.