Commentary
At an annual security conference in Singapore on June 4, China’s defense minister accused the United States of being a hegemonic power. Given all the trouble Washington is experiencing over Taiwan and Ukraine, clearly, we are not.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was also at the conference. He sat at the same dinner table as the Chinese defense minister, Li Shangfu. However, they were seated too far apart to speak with one another, which was probably at the request of Beijing.
Li has refused to speak with Austin for years, despite Austin’s repeated attempts and the obvious need for clear lines of communication between major nuclear powers….