A notable shift in Washington’s public military rhetoric towards China was on display at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who used the same forum twelve months earlier to level pointed attacks, offered a markedly restrained performance, pledging a “strong, quiet, clear” approach and conspicuously avoiding any reference to Taiwan. The change of tone, likened by a retired PLA senior colonel to the face-changing masks of Sichuan opera, comes as the People’s Liberation Army presses towards its own stated ambition of becoming a world-class fighting force by the centenary of the People’s Republic in 2049. “China’s rise is inevitable. It’s not rising. It’s already risen. But the question is how China would behave,” the same officer, Zhou Bo, has said.

Beijing’s official behaviour elsewhere is projected through a very different lens. Senior Chinese diplomats insist that the country’s expanding footprint, notably in Latin America and the Caribbean, is devoid of geopolitical calculation. Zhang Run, the foreign ministry’s director-general for the region, recently stressed that cooperation is founded on development and mutual benefit, is not directed against any third party, and that nations themselves must choose their friends. The message is calibrated to assuage fears among smaller states while drawing a contrast with what Beijing portrays as Washington’s heavy-handed use of sanctions, such as its enduring embargo on Cuba.

Such reassurances struggle to quell darker suspicions about Peking’s ultimate designs. Argentine media have given prominence to a scenario in which China could launch a military offensive against Russia to seize control of the Arctic, where melting ice is opening priceless new shipping lanes. The theory, however speculative, reveals an undercurrent of distrust that stretches beyond traditional Western intelligence circles — a perception that Beijing may yet weaponise its partnerships once the strategic calculus shifts.

Analysts in London and Singapore see the dissonance as characteristic of a transitional moment in global power. America’s quieter security rhetoric could signal either a pragmatic recognition of limits or a tactical pause, while China’s mixed messaging — developmental partner one day, latent hegemon the next — leaves the international community less able to form a single, stable picture of the Asian giant’s trajectory. In an environment where even allies entertain scenarios of betrayal, the path to predictable great-power relations remains heavily obscured.