President Joe Biden announced at the G7 summit in Japan last month that he was open to détente with Beijing and “the beginning of a thaw [of the Sino-U.S. relationship] very soon.” Since then, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rhetoric and actions suggest Biden’s détente is wishful thinking.
Last week, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China sent its J-16 fighter jet to conduct “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver,” as the U.S. military characterized it. It was dangerously close (about 400 feet) to a U.S. Air Force RC-135 surveillance plane over the South China Sea in international air space. The incident took place when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was visiting Japan. Almost exactly a year ago, a Chinese fighter jet made a similar move against an Australian reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the South China Sea. Australia’s defense ministry called the encounter “a dangerous maneuver that posed a safety threat to the P-8 aircraft and its crew.”
Toward the end of last week, China’s defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, rejected the U.S. request to meet with Austin at an annual security conference in Singapore. The U.S. government has put Li on its sanctions list since 2018 after Li “purchased combat aircraft and missile equipment from Russia,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Instead, Li used his meeting with Singapore’s defense chief, Ng Eng Hen, to vow that the PLA would “absolutely not” renounce the use of force on Taiwan. He also said Beijing wouldn’t tolerate Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, seeking support from other countries for Taiwan’s
