BILL GERTZ: China Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Tests a Signal to US, World.

The four-star admiral noted that Wei, the Chinese defense minister, spoke at a security conference in Singapore in early June in remarks he described as “quite chilling.”

“Not only did [Wei] make it clear that he didn’t think Asia and the Western Pacific was any place for America, he said Asia wasn’t even for Asians—it was for the Chinese,” Davidson said.

“Within 24 hours of that they tested a new nuclear ballistic missile, not in nuclear mode necessarily.”

The admiral was referring to China’s test of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile known as the JL-3

Then on July 8, Wei spoke to a forum of defense ministers from Latin America and Pacific island nations in China and admitted that China’s global development program known as Belt and Road Initiative was indeed a basis for future military expansion.

Chinese officials previously insisted there was no military component to the multitrillion-dollar initiative.

And who believed that?