US general: China's Xi Jinping wants to rule the world as 'only' superpower, surrounded by 'vassal states'

Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner

June 4, 2021 Updated Jun 4, 2021

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Chinese officials want to seize the mantle of the world's "only" superpower from the United States, a four-star U.S. Air Force general is warning Washington's Indo-Pacific allies.

"They don't believe there can be multiple superpowers, they believe that there can only be one, and they want to return back to the glory days of [imperial] China where everybody else was a vassal state and everybody [kowtowed] to the emperor," U.S. Pacific Air Forces Command chief Kenneth Wilsbach told reporters Friday. "And the emperor now is the Chinese Communist Party."

Wilsbach delivered that warning just days after Malaysian forces intercepted 16 Chinese People's Liberation Army planes, although Chinese officials denied entering Malaysian airspace. That incident is just the latest example of friction between Beijing and neighboring governments, as Chinese officials are prosecuting border disputes with Japan and the Philippines, while the PLA'S saber-rattling around Taiwan has raised fears that Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping might try to invade the island democracy.

"We set ourselves up for miscalculations around the region when we have some of these activities when we're getting into people's airspace that we shouldn't," Wilsbach said, according to a local report.

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President Joe Biden's national security team has identified competition with China as the centerpiece of his foreign policy amid bipartisan agreement that Beijing represents a long-term geopolitical threat to U.S. interests. A bipartisan bloc of lawmakers want the U.S. government to spend more than $4 billion this year to finance the Pacific Deterrence Initiative priorities outlined to Congress by Adm. Philip Davidson, the then-commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command who warned in March that "the period between now and 2026, this decade, is the time horizon in which China" might perceive an opportunity to invade Taiwan.

"For years, senior U.S. officials, military commanders, and our allies in the region have told Congress how important it is to increase U.S. security cooperation investments in the region and adapt U.S. force posture to respond to China's growing military capabilities and aggression," Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, said Thursday. "Now it is time to put our money where our mouth is."

China has claimed sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, in defiance of an international ruling and the sovereignty claims of U.S. allies in the region. Chinese forces also have been stockpiling a missile arsenal that could require the U.S. Navy to withdraw from key waterways in the event of a crisis, a development that has raised suspicions that Beijing might feel empowered to win a conflict — provided that it takes place in the relatively near future before Pentagon planners have time to reposition U.S. forces in the region.

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"The trust for China is extremely low," Wilsbach said. "All of this combined mistrust between us and the allies and partners is driving us to know what China is up to militarily because we don't want any surprises."

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