Mr. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a 7,000-word joint statement in Beijing on Thursday that criticized the United States on two hot-button issues: Russia’s war in Ukraine and the growing concern of a U.S.-China clash over Taiwan. 

Mr. Putin’s state visit to China this week set out to forge closer bilateral strategic ties and to portray the United States as an aggressive Cold War hegemon attempting to destabilize the world. National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz reports on the granular nature of Thursday’s joint statement, which criticized the Pentagon’s development of precision non-nuclear strike weapons that Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi warned could be used to take out the leaders of foreign governments.

The document also criticized U.S. plans to deploy ground-based intermediate-range and short-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific and European regions that will include transfers of the missiles to American allies.

South Africa’s May 29 election will likely reverberate beyond the region, amid rising U.S.-China competition on the continent. Special Correspondent Geoff Hill reports from Johannesburg that the African National Congress — the party that Nelson Mandela led to victory at the post-apartheid nation’s first democratic vote in 1994, and that has now had a stranglehold on power for three decades — is polling below 50% as the election enters the home stretch.

The U.S. has cultivated South Africa as an economic and strategic partner, but U.S.-South African relations are strained by Pretoria’s lead role in a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice over its campaign against Hamas, and South Africa’s refusal to break ties with Russia or condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

John Steenhuisen, a key opposition figure, suggested in an interview with The Washington Times that if his own Democratic Alliance wins enough votes to lead a rival coalition into office, he will adopt a foreign policy less confrontational toward the United States.

That was a key takeaway from the annual Asan Plenum, a major security conference held in Seoul this week. Scholars of modern warfare noted that today’s current-generation, cross-domain conflicts are — to borrow a phrase from Hollywood — “everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Adversarial states and non-state actors such as Islamic State and al Qaeda are deploying asymmetric assets that operate at low risk and low cost across new real and virtual battlefields, assets to which the U.S. and its allies have so far been unable to respond effectively.

Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from the conference that there are few or no rules or laws to govern emerging domains like cyberspace, outer space and “gray zone” tactics. The failure of deterrence in modern conflicts also poses a major dilemma for the U.S. and its allies.

“How do you compete in a constant competition/conflict continuum short of all-out war, while ensuring deterrence is assured?” asked Diana Myers, an ex-fellow with the Rand Corp. “The things that keep me up are non-kinetic: the ability for malicious nations and non-aligned actors to challenge how we receive and process information.” There are “Orwellian” solutions to this problem, policing speech and political content, “but we are not that,” she said. “It puts us in a complicated situation.”

U.S. Navy veteran Frank Hryniewicz was buried with full military honors Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery, more than 80 years after the Massachusetts native was killed when Japan launched its Dec. 7, 1941, attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii.

Pentagon Correspondent Mike Glenn covered the ceremony at Arlington Cemetery, writing that Mr. Hryniewicz, then 20, was aboard the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked  “Battleship Row” with swarms of torpedo bombers. The Oklahoma was hit by several Type 91 aerial torpedoes, which split open the ship’s port side along much of its length. The battleship quickly rolled over and sank to the bottom of the harbor. 

Retired CIA Clandestine Services Officer Daniel N. Hoffman recalls that when David Petraeus was the agency’s director, he “told us he would, figuratively speaking, take a moment to ‘sit under a tree’ to let an idea sink in after receiving analysis in the packed CIA seventh-floor conference room, especially an idea that conflicted with one of his assessments.”

“His commitment to gaining a 360-degree perspective on the issue at hand made it clear he valued our work and was focused solely on the success of the mission,” writes Mr. Hoffman, a Threat Status columnist. 

“Last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson demonstrated that same high standard of leadership when he put the $95 billion supplemental military assistance package, which included $60 billion for Ukraine, to a vote,” Mr. Hoffman writes. “The Louisiana Republican initially opposed the package, but — like some of my best mentors — he demonstrated the strength of character to challenge his own assumptions.”  

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll’s new book “The Achilles Trap” goes deep into the world of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to a review by Martin Di Caro.

Mr. Coll obtained “never-before-published audiotapes of Saddam’s internal deliberations,” along with loads of Iraqi government documents, writes Mr. Di Caro. According to the author, the sources reveal a leader consumed by suspicions of foreign spies and assassination plots but who failed to grasp the nature of U.S. decision-making, not least because he espoused crude conspiracy theories about all-powerful Zionists manipulating events.

• May 20 — Roundtable: Republican foreign policy for a new Cold War, Chatham House.

• May 20 — Strategic Synergies: India-U.S. Technology Cooperation, Hudson Institute.

• May 21 — A Conversation with Former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi: Reflections on Diplomacy and Peace, U.S. Institute of Peace.

• May 21 — Navigating Change in Russia’s Contested Neighborhood, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

• May 22 — Nikki Haley on the Dangers of National Security Weakness, Hudson Institute.

• May 22 — Can China offer a real alternative to liberal democracy? The Brookings Institution.

• May 23 — Hearing: Key Economic Strategies for Leveling the U.S.-China Playing Field, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.