An unusual and perhaps notable event unfolded at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this week, one of the only regional defense summits in the region held each year. Most of you are already no doubt aware of the increasing level of tension between the United States and China that has been growing steadily for the past two years. Many have been speculating about the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and even the possibility of World War 3. But Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu addressed the conference and took a decidedly different tone than we’ve been hearing out of Beijing recently. He bemoaned the idea that “some countries” (obviously meaning America) were “intensifying an arms race.” He also declared that war with the United States would be an “unbearable disaster” all around and should be avoided. So what was he up to? Is this a change in policy or simply a case of adaptive tactics based on the actions of Joe Biden? (BBC)

Li said that China and America need to “seek common ground.” He also recognized that the two countries “have different systems and are different in many other ways.” But he also cautioned against a “new cold war mentality” between our two nations. In most respects, he was sounding close to being downright reasonable.

But what you hear from China and what you actually wind up getting are generally two very different things. Tensions are even higher than usual right now because of the recent incident of a Chinese warship blitzing past one of our destroyers. Other earlier provocations have left everyone on edge. It’s possible that Li was told to try to lower the temperature a bit with a few moderate comments.

The second of three possible scenarios I’ll offer deals mostly with timing. China also has a lot on its plate right now and they’re getting increasingly entwined in the events in Ukraine. Xi Jinping obviously knows that if he invades Taiwan, it may spark a war. So it’s possible that he would like to cool things off on the Pacific front until he’s fully ready to invade. And he may not feel that he could fully repel an American response. He may be evil, but he’s not stupid.

But the last and most worrisome scenario I’m contemplating involves President Biden’s recent comments about not wanting to fully “decouple” from China. Obviously, Xi Jinping was listening. They do a lot of business with us and we owe them a ton of money. The more charitable side of this analysis might suggest that Xi wants to tone things down to maintain an economic relationship, at least for now.

But then there are all of the recent revelations about all the money that Biden Inc. accepted from China over the years. I can’t escape the idea that Biden remains compromised in some fashion and Xi Jinping knows he doesn’t have much to worry about, so perhaps he can simply paint a happy (or slightly less angry) face on the situation for the time being. Is that really such a crazy idea?

Either way, I’d rather hear the two sides talking about something other than war, so I won’t punt the Chinese Defense Minister from the field out of hand. But we still need to be implementing domestic measures to eliminate Chinese access to American assets and technology and working to bring our own manufacturing base back to full strength and “decoupling” from China as rapidly as possible.