Shangri-La dialogue begins while the United States and China are fighting for domination

China does not want to go to war with anyone, especially the United States.

But Beijing has aspirations to be the first economic power in the world.

And that means to flex its muscles to rid the seas around East Asia and Southeast of their American military presence, so that it can dominate the shipping routes so vital for world trade.

By building its nuclear and conventional arsenals, China aims to show in the United States that times have changed and that it is a power too dangerous to challenge.

The United States has long been in the upper hand in Asia-Pacific-with tens of thousands of soldiers based in Japan and South Korea, alongside several military bases.

Trump’s administration has clearly focused its energy on the fight against China – by launching a trade war and seeking to strengthen alliances with Asian nations.

Shangri-La dialogue has always been the framework of high-level meetings between the United States and China-an arena for superpowers to expose their vision of security in the region.

And he opens again to Singapore on Friday. Here is what we can expect from the three -day event:

The growing struggle for domination between the United States and China is undoubtedly the biggest security problem in Asia-Pacific.

It is over the time when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China was characterized by obsolete weapons and a rigid Maoist doctrine. Today, it is a great force deployment of advanced hypersonic missiles and fifth generation war planes like the J20.

His navy has the greatest number of warships in the world, going beyond the United States.

While China is far behind the United States and Russia in its number of nuclear warheads, it quickly extends its nuclear arsenal, with missiles that can travel up to 15,000 km, easily putting the continental United States.

The formidable 7th Fleet of the US Navy, based in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo, can no longer claim to have a guaranteed naval supremacy in the region.

The Chinese range of Dong Feng missiles and explosive drone swarms would approach its banks extremely dangerous for American warships.

In the end, Beijing should work to “push” the American army outside the Western Pacific.

Taiwan is a liberal, autonomous and provocative pro-Western island democracy that Chinese president Xi Jinping has sworn to “take up” by force if necessary.

It has an economic importance far beyond its small geographic size. It manufactures more than 90% of high-end micropuits in the world, very important semiconductors that supply so much with our technology.

Recent opinion polls have clearly indicated that a majority of Taiwanese do not want to be governed by Beijing, but Xi has made it a key policy.

The United States has done a lot to help Taiwan strengthen its defenses, but the key question of knowing if Washington would go to war with China against Taiwan has always been surrounded by something called “strategic ambiguity”, that is to say, keeping it in Beijing.

At more than one opportunity, President Biden said the United States would respond militarily in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. But Donald Trump’s return to the oval office brought back a certain degree of uncertainty.

There are also major concerns in the region on China’s attempts to transform the entire Southern China Sea into that some have called a “Chinese lake”.

The PLA Navy has established military bases on reefs, many dragouts artificially, through the strategically important southern China Sea, an area in which around 3 billions of maritime trade dollars passes each year.

Today, China deploys a large industrial fishing fleet through the Southern China Sea, supported by its fleet of coast guard and warships. These ships frequently compete with Filipino fishermen, fishing near the banks of their own country.

China frequently puts planes and ships passing the Southern China Sea, warning them that they enter the Chinese territory without authorization, when the rest of the world considers that it is international waters.

Donald Trump, when asked during his first presidency if North Korea could ever develop nuclear missiles that could reach the continental United States, have sworn “it will never happen”. But it’s.

In what is equivalent to a serious CIA intelligence failure, Pyongyang has demonstrated that he now has both nuclear know-how and the means to deliver these warheads through the Pacific Ocean.

The successive presidencies of the United States have failed to limit the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and this isolated nation, economically backwards but militarily powerful, would have at least 20 nuclear warheads.

He also has a huge armed army, some of his autocratic leader Kim Jong Une sent to help Russia fight against Ukraine.

Defense analysts always dissect the recent conflict, in short but alarming between these two neighbors of nuclear weapons. The soldiers of India go beyond the numbers of Pakistan and yet, the latter could have harmed an embarrassing blow against the Air Force of India, when the J10-C jets of Chinese manufacture of Pakistan faced the advanced gusts of French-French-French.

Pakistan would have shot down at least one of the Indian war planes, using Air-Air PL-15 missiles of Chinese manufacturing. The reports were refused in the Indian media.

The assistance of China in Pakistan in the conflict would have been essential in Islamabad, including the repositioning of his satellites to provide him with real -time information.

India and Pakistan should make high-level addresses to Shangri-La dialogue this weekend while the United States and others will seek ways to prevent a repetition of its confrontation on cashmere.

All this occurs in a radically changed American context.

The sudden taxation of Donald Trump’s commercial prices, while ultimately changed, has led many members of the region to rethink their dependence in Washington. An ally who is ready to inflict so many economic pains on her friends really came to help if they were attacked?

China quickly capitalized on confusion. He contacted neighbors such as Vietnam – a country with which he went to war in 1979 – to underline the People’s Republic represented stability and continuity in an unstable world.

Under the previous American administration, Washington signed a trilateral partnership of several billion dollars between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia under the acronym of Aukus.

It aims not only to build the next generation of Canberra submarines, but also to guarantee freedom of navigation through the Southern China Sea using intelligence and the naval force deployed by the three nations.

President Trump, when he was questioned in February his commitment to the Aukus pact, seemed not to recognize the term, asking in response: “What does that mean?”

But early this Saturday morning, the Secretary in the United States of Defense, Pete Hegseth, will be addressed to Shangri-La dialogue, will potentially offer a certain clarity in Aukus as well as the way in which the United States predicts to work with the interests of China in the Asia-Pacific region.