Admiral Paparo’s reaction after going back & forth with the longest-serving Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. at #SLD24 🧵
“You’re speaking as if all the panelists here want to fight. We are the life insurance policy against fighting. We have children in uniform. And that is the very last thing that we do.
Deterrence is our first duty. The assumption somehow that all of us want to fight, & you are the lone human being on this panel that wants peace — if that is the point you're making, my dear friend, that is not the case.”
Thread with a few clips & quotes:
Admiral Paparo, Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was part of a panel with Cui Tiankai, who was the longest-serving Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
“We’re sitting on a panel called deterrence & reassurance. And the very first statement that we made was that deterrence is our first duty... we want peace every bit as much as you do.”
Paparo was responding to this commentary from Tiankai, who said “having two major military blocks confronting each other, with very high risk of real war or even nuclear wars — is that a right approach?”
“I certainly understand you. I'm not questioning your personal intention or your willingness, your devotion to peace. I have no question about that. But I remember Dr. Henry Kissinger told me time and again that the First World War started without anybody planning for it.
So we have to warn against that. Despite all the good intentions — things could still go wrong.”
“Dr. Kissinger told me two months before he died: I approve of what you're doing. And I think you should be as strong as you possibly can until such time as you have the ability to have a more constructive bilateral relationship.”
Last year at Shangri-la, China’s Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu shook hands with U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin in a “surprise exchange,” but refused direct talks. A month or two later, Li disappeared from the public eye, & formally stripped of his titles in October.
During the panel discussion, Paparo referenced the Pacific Century:
On day two of #SLD24, the U.S. Secretary of Defense responded to a question from a Chinese PLA Colonel in the audience (and got a round of applause):
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