Washington's blinkered brinkmanship is dangerously sociopathic behavior

Unsurprisingly, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin used his keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday to show off the strength of the US alliance system in the region before rightly stating that a war over Taiwan would be "devastating" and affect the global economy "in ways we cannot imagine."

But the US defense chief is being both hypocritical and deceptive when trying to pin the blame on Beijing should there be a war over Taiwan. It is the United States that is responsible for the escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait and jeopardizing regional peace and stability by colluding with and encouraging the separatist forces on the island.

The same day when Austin spoke at the Singapore security forum with an intention to mislead the international community, a US Navy spokesperson announced that US and Canadian warships had sailed through the Taiwan Strait highlighting which country and its allies are militarizing the waters.