US Defense Secretary: A Conflict In Taiwan Strait Would Be "Devastating"

"The United States does not seek a new Cold War. And competition must not spill over into conflict,” but is working closely with allies to "upgrade” force posture in the region.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that a war in the Taiwan Strait “would be devastating” but that the world has a stake in “maintaining peace and stability” in the region, as well as in the “whole world”, also saying that conflict is “neither imminent or inevitable” and that the United States “does not seek a new Cold War”.

During his visit to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, he said that “more and more” countries in the Indo-Pacific region have “come together” around a “compelling vision of the future” which involves a “region in which all countries are free to thrive on their own terms—without coercion, or intimidation, or bullying”.

He went on to say that it’s a vision of a “free, and open, and secure Indo-Pacific” within a world of “rules and rights”, adding that the vision is “anchored in some key principles”: