Pentagon Chief: US Faces Pivotal Years in Countering China

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—The United States is at a pivotal point with China and will need military strength to ensure that American values, not Beijing’s, set global norms in the 21st century, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday.
Austin’s speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum capped a week in which the Pentagon was squarely focused on China and the threat it poses to America’s position in the world.
On Monday it released an annual China security report that warned Beijing would likely have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, with no clarity on how the Chinese communist regime would seek to use them….}