As Fumio Kishida prepares to address the Shangri La Dialogue tomorrow in Singapore, all eyes are on the Japanese Prime Minister to see if he will rise to the Chinese challenge and deliver a message pointing to a unilateral change in the status quo with force, whether against Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands or Ukraine, is globally unacceptable.

While his predecessor Shinzo Abe made it clear that the Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a military emergency for Japan, Kishida is expected to send a strong message to China that any PLA armed aggression against Taiwan or the Senkaku Islands will be met with a resolute military response. It will also showcase Japan’s commitment to opening up and liberating the Indo-Pacific to fend off growing Chinese belligerence in the region beyond the South and East China Seas.

The focus will also be on US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose speech comes at a time when China is rapidly expanding its geopolitical footprint from the Far Pacific to Central Asia with Foreign Minister Wang Yi still in Kazakhstan as part of a three-day trip. China’s model of first trade relations and then diplomacy was showcased when Minister Wang visited eight countries in Oceania from May 26 to June 4.

ASEAN countries will listen very carefully to Secretary Austin’s lecture, because not so long ago a United States Secretary of Defense under the Democratic Obama regime spoke of the stillborn East Asian pivot from the same platform. With the United States and Europe fully involved in the endless war against Ukraine, ASEAN countries will be hedging their bets on whether the United States has the energy and military capability to confront the ever-growing China in East and North Asia. While the United States tells its interlocutors in Asia that it is determined to meet the challenge of China, ASEAN countries, including Singapore, like to sit on the fence rather than caught between the two friends who have become rivals.

Countering Kishida and Austin’s narrative will be China’s Minister of National Defense, General Wei Fenghe, who is a key member of the all-powerful Central Military Commission headed by the Eternal Chairman, President Xi Jinping. While General Wei will criticize US policy in the Indo-Pacific as being anti-China and part of a ploy to create divisions and incite clashes in the region. The defense minister will try to promote China’s vision of regional cooperation while standing firm on Taiwan and the one-China policy while criticizing the United States for provoking regional confrontation by supporting Taipei militarily.

The Indian side will be represented at the dialogue by the Commander of the Eastern Navy, Vice-Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta, and Lieutenant General (Retired) Narasimhan, who heads Chinese studies at MEA. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh is not attending the dialogue even though he ends his visit to Vietnam today.

As China racks up IOUs and diplomatic leverage alternately from South Asia, Central Asia and now Oceania, the time to challenge Beijing by the democratic world is quickly running out. Mere words from the podium mean nothing.

Image source: Hindustan Times