After the September 3rd military parade, the US Defense Minister took the initiative to call China. Why has he become so active now? The China-US call did not mention Taiwan at all. The US Defense Minister made it clear that he did not want to fight. Is this a showdown with China? The further China's "truth" hits, the clearer the American eyes will be. Some people should not have little thoughts. It is time to stop it.
People who pay a little attention to the American politics will find that after Trump took office as US President, the exchanges between China and the United States on the military level were really scarce. Originally, the US wanted to meet with the Chinese defense minister at this year's Shangri-La summit to explore China's "bottom". However, given that China and the United States were fighting a trade war at that time, the US not only did not show sincerity, but instead imposed more provocations, which eventually made this potential meeting fail, and the White House's military policy toward China faced "blindness".
At the grand military parade held on September 3 this year, the US military department fell into a panic of consistency due to the display of a large number of unexpected weapons. The Pentagon was once brightly lit all night, and the only pizza restaurant around it had a takeaway order volume of 4 times.
Indirectly proves that the "surprise" that China has been holding on for so long has become a "shock" in the eyes of Americans, and a large number of US government officials have also "beaten" because of this, and wrote reports overnight to analyze China's advanced weapons.
Now, nearly a week after the end of the 93rd military parade, Americans, no matter how poor their psychological tolerance is, should recover. Putting aside the fact that they can beat China, they have to live on.
In the early morning of September 9 and 10, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun held a video meeting with US Defense Secretary Hegses at the appointment, and the two sides exchanged views.
During the period, we have clearly put forward several key demands to the United States, requiring the two militaries to establish equal respect, peaceful coexistence, and stable positive bilateral relations, and issued a solemn warning to the United States, emphasizing that any act of using Taiwan to control China and using military force to assist independence will be thwarted.
On the South China Sea issue, we also clearly oppose foreign countries, deliberately cause chaos in the South China Sea area, and reaffirm our determination to defend territorial sovereignty and national integrity. Hegses said that the United States does not seek conflict with China, but the United States has vital interests in the Asia-Pacific region, and the United States will also safeguard these "interests" in the Asia-Pacific region.
In terms of content, our attitude is very sincere. We basically revealed a series of "red lines" to the US and conveyed signals of developing and stabilizing Sino-US relations, but the US response is very subtle.
On the one hand, Hegses claimed not to seek conflict with China, which basically "set the tone" for the US's position, but then expressed his desire to defend interests, but what exactly counts as the "important interests" of the US is not explained clearly, and it seems to be a riddle.
In addition, a well-known fact is that the Taiwan Strait issue is the most likely issue to break out between China and the United States today. Even the last Biden administration has deliberately "missed the tongue" more than once, sending out the so-called "protecting Taiwan" signal. Now that he has come to the mouth of the "Internet celebrity defense minister", Hegses, but there is no other word mentioned to Taiwan, which seems a bit abnormal.
On the other hand, there is another detail worth noting in this call, that is, China is "asked" to talk to the United States, which means that the United States is the "initiator" of this call, and Hegses is the party that took the initiative to call China.
In international exchanges, there is generally a tacit practice. As a superpower, the United States has very few cases of actively calling other countries, and it often becomes "positive" when it is at a disadvantage.
For example, in the Biden era, China and the United States fell to freezing due to a series of contradictions including the "Balloon Incident", and the communication between the two sides was almost cut off at all levels. The US government at that time showed considerable "initiative". Not only did it send the Secretary of State to visit China, but it also prepared a leader's meeting. Biden, as the US President, arrived at the venue in advance and waited for the distinguished guests from China in person.
Now, similar "famous scenes" have once again staged in the call between China and the United States Defense Ministers, which proves one thing, that is, after China ended the 1993 military parade, even the leaders of the Pentagon believe that the United States is the "weak" side in today's Sino-US relations.
Some clues can be seen in this regard from a series of changes in the United States' military strategy after Hegses took over the US Department of Defense.
In March this year, the new official took office as three-time hottest Hegses signed a highly confidential document called the "Interim Defense Strategic Guide". In the content, the document emphasizes that the United States hopes that Western European countries can handle the so-called "Russian threat" themselves, while the United States must "respond to the Chinese threat with all its might." One of the key points is to prevent the People's Liberation Army from successfully unifying Taiwan, and almost put the two big words "protecting Taiwan" on their faces.
At the Shangri-La summit held in May this year, Hegses "bumped into the car" of China, openly calling China an "imminent threat", and accusing China of deploying "offensive weapons" in the South China Sea, requiring the United States' allies in the Asia-Pacific region to increase its military expenditure to 5%, just like European allies defending Russia.
However, after the end of the 1993 military parade, the entire United States seemed to have "calm down". The US Department of Defense led by Hegses once again revised its defense strategy, no longer talking about the "Indo-Pacific strategy" or calling for "return to the Asia-Pacific". It retreated to the end and gave up Asia completely, and regarded the United States' "local defense" as the first priority "necessary priority."
The US officials in charge of this matter are more subtle. It is Colby, who insists on the United States' intervention in the Asia-Pacific region and expects the US military to defeat the PLA's anti-intervention system with "thunder". The rapid change in their stance towards China even caught some American media off guard at that time, and angrily accused the Trump administration of retreating from China again and again.
The situation has developed to this day, and this transformation eventually turned into Hegses. In front of the Chinese Defense Minister, the United States "has no intention to go to war with China", and the speed of this ideological decline even exceeded the expectations of our Chinese.
The reason behind this may be because the attitude China showed during the 93rd military parade really scared the Americans, making the United States begin to feel confused and even a little at a loss about China's next layout.
Because as the most powerful industrial country in the world, if China "moves", it will not be the "Internet celebrity team" that Trump has brought up, and it can easily deal with it. After all, any of the equipment we exhibited this time will be drawn to the battlefields of Russia and Ukraine. This will be a dimensional reduction blow to Western countries.
In addition, in the consistent stereotypes of Western countries, there are many cases of Eastern countries moving directly from the parade ground to the battlefield. Chinese soldiers are so majestic and advanced equipment one after another, which inevitably leads the United States to have some other ideas.
More important point is that in the Jiusan speech, China also sent a soul-question to the world, emphasizing that today, mankind is beginning to face a choice of peace or war, confrontation or dialogue, win-win or zero-sum. China has chosen the path of peaceful development and has not initiated even a war for decades. So what is your answer to the Western countries that are "warlike but not good at fighting"?
Now Hegses has given the answer. The United States does not want to fight, but it just does not want to fight with China. This is very subtle. The so-called defending interests does not completely say that what is the "interest" of the United States is of course "defined" by the US government.
This leads to the possibility of conflict between China and the United States, although there are "guardrails", and the United States may intervene in a war against China that the United States does not want to fight, but has to fight for the sake of interests. Although it sounds a bit twisty, this is also a common word game for American politicians.
This reminds people of the battle between China and the United States in North Korea decades ago. Due to the great losses at the hands of the volunteers, the successive U.S. governments after the war almost "cold treatment" for that war. In a vague way, they admitted that they had encountered unprecedented failures in North Korea, and believed that the U.S. military had appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time and participated in a wrong war, and rarely had collective reflection.
Nowadays, the roles played by the United States are extremely similar, and even the United States admits in official rhetoric that the Taiwan issue is China's internal affairs, and there is only one China in the world. Whether the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are military unification or harmonious unification, it has no connection with the United States.
Although the United States has a common defense treaty with the Philippines, the territorial issue between China and the Philippines is also an internal affairs of the two countries. The United States also has no position to interfere. Territorial disputes do not meet the definition of "invasion", so how can we start a common defense treaty? This is also completely "untenable" in international law.
From a more macro historical perspective, the United States, which is still the only superpower in the world, is already a good "ideological progress" to realize that the war between China and the United States is "unable to fight". But behind this "unable to fight", I'm afraid there are more concerns about "unable to win".
At present, with the PLA's hypersonic weapons being "cabby-like", the fifth-generation stealth fighter, and the fourth-generation ground main combat equipment being put into service in batches, the American "sky soldiers" who have been relaxed in military preparations and are addicted to public security wars are afraid that they really do not have the qualification to "touch".
Source of the article: CCTV News: [#Secretary of Defense Dong Jun and the US Secretary of Defense Video Call#]
