Acclaimed diplomat Henry Kissinger said Friday that US-China tensions threaten to engulf the entire world and could lead to an Armageddon-like clash between the two military and technology giants.

The 97-year-old former US secretary of state, who as an advisor to president Richard Nixon crafted the 1971 unfreezing of relations between Washington and Beijing, said the mix of economic, military and technological strengths of the two superpowers carried more risks than the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Strains with China are "the biggest problem for America, the biggest problem for the world," Kissinger told the McCain Institute's Sedona Forum on global issues.

"Because if we can't solve that, then the risk is that all over the world a kind of cold war will develop between China and the United States."

While nuclear weapons were already large enough to damage the entire globe during the Cold War, he said advances in nuclear technology and artificial intelligence -- where China and the United States are both leaders -- have multiplied the doomsday threat.

"For the first time in human history, humanity has the capacity to extinguish itself in a finite period of time," Kissinger said.

"We have developed the technology of a power that is beyond what anybody imagined even 70 years ago."

"And now, to the nuclear issue is added the high tech issue, which in the field of artificial intelligence, in its essence is based on the fact that man becomes a partner of machines and that machines can develop their own judgement," he said.

"So in a military conflict between high-tech powers, it's of colossal significance."

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union during the decades after World War II was more one-dimensional, focused on nuclear weapons competition, said Kissinger, one of the leading strategic thinkers of the past six decades.

"The Soviet Union had no economic capacity. They had military technological capacity," he said.

"(They) didn't have developmental technological capacity as China does. China is a huge economic power in addition to being a significant military power."

Kissinger said US policy toward China must take a two-pronged approach: standing firm on US principles to demand China's respect, while maintaining a constant dialogue and finding areas of cooperation.

"I'm not saying that diplomacy will always lead to beneficial results," he said.

"This is the complex task we have... Nobody has succeeded in doing it completely," he said.

Australia reviewing controversial Chinese lease on Darwin port
Sydney (AFP) May 3, 2021 - Australia on Monday said a Chinese company's controversial 99-year-lease on Darwin Port is under review and could be scrapped, opening a new point of friction in relations between Beijing and Canberra.

The lease deal -- brokered by local authorities in Australia's Northern Territory -- had raised serious concern in Canberra and in Washington, where it was seen as a strategic liability.

Darwin is the most important port on Australia's north coast, the closest to Asia and a base for US Marines who rotate in and out of the country.

Newly minted defence minister Peter Dutton told the Sydney Morning Herald his department had been asked to "come back with some advice" about the 2015 deal and refused to rule out forcing Chinese firm Landbridge to divest on national security grounds.

The defence review will be carried out and "we can look at options that are in our national interests after that" he said.

Landbridge is owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng.

Following the Darwin port deal, Australia introduced legislation giving Canberra a veto over future sensitive deals and launching a review of those already signed.

That review is due to be concluded by the end of the year and had been expected to include Darwin.

But in his comments to the Herald, Dutton stated explicitly for the first time that the Darwin agreement is under review.

Any move to scrap the deal is sure to further strain relations between Australia and China which are already in deep crisis.

Last month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government scrapped a Belt and Road deal made between Beijing and the state of Victoria.

That prompted a furious response from China, which warned of "serious harm" in the already fractured relationship.

The Belt and Road initiative is designed to deepen China's ties across Asia and the world.

But critics say its projects and the companies involved are used as geopolitical levers by Beijing.

Deputy defense secretary stresses diplomacy in dealing with China
Washington DC (UPI) Apr 30, 2021 - Stressing the importance of diplomacy, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Friday that conflict was China was neither desirable nor inevitable.

In remarks to a virtual meeting of the Aspen Defense Forum, Hicks noted that China can challenge the United States in several categories.

She noted that Chinese military capability is advancing in fields including long-range missiles and air defense systems, as well as in cybersecurity and in space.

"Beijing has the economic, military and technological capability to challenge the international system and America's interests within it," she said, noting China's claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea.

"Let there be no doubt, China presents a real and enduring challenge," she added, saying that the support of the U.S. Congress is necessary to ensure that the Defense Department can deter Chinese aggression.

Hicks said, though, that open diplomatic channels with China are crucial, with the U.S. military prepared to "serve as a supporting player to diplomatic, economic and other goals."

Tensions between China and the United States and its allies have been simmering for months.

This has been apparent in Chinese demonstrations of military air power near Taiwan, a U.S. ally China regards as a breakaway province, and also in regular transits of U.S. warships through the Taiwan Strait, which separates the island of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

On Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that China is willing to put a stop to any movement toward Taiwanese independence, a day after U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Armed Services that Taiwan's views of independence are "hardening" amid the tensions.

Last week, Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that China is on pace to double its nuclear weapons stockpile by the end of the decade.

Richard added that China can mount its intercontinental ballistic missiles on trucks so their location can be concealed.

In the South China Sea, Chinese overflights to the edge of Taiwanese air sovereignty have been common, as have visits by U.S. warships and those of allies.

The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, comprised of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and numerous escort destroyers and frigates, entered the sea to conduct routine operations earlier in April.

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