U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and China’s defense minister held their first face-to-face talks in 18 months on Friday, amid mistrust over Taiwan, the South China Sea and other regional disputes.
The meeting in Singapore between Austin and Admiral Dong Jun, his Chinese counterpart, came after a succession of Biden administration officials traveled to Beijing for talks on trade imbalances, US restrictions on technology sales to China, Chinese support to Russia throughout its war against Ukraine and other sources of tension.
President Biden has argued that high-level communication channels between the United States and China needed to remain open to avoid potential clashes between two of the world’s most powerful militaries. However, military issues remain the most intractable area of tension between the two nations, and expectations for the meeting between defense chiefs in Singapore were modest.
“These are not negotiations with the intention of reaching a compromise,” said Drew Thompson, a visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, who previously served as a Pentagon official on the military. Chinese. “This is an opportunity for the two sides to exchange well-established talking points.”
The military rivalry between the two powers has its roots in long-standing disputes that are not easily resolved. These include China’s claim to Taiwan, the island democracy that depends on the United States for its security, and Beijing’s increasingly assertive claim to vast swaths of the South China Sea, which has alarmed its neighbors.
Admiral Dong became defense minister late last year after his predecessor abruptly disappeared, apparently caught up in widening investigations into corruption or other misdeeds in the People’s Liberation Army. He is considered to lack the power to make major strategic decisions.
“He is not a member of the Central Military Commission, much less the Politburo,” Thompson said, referring to two of the highest levels of power in the Chinese leadership.
The United States may simply want to show that both sides are at least willing to talk despite their differences.
For more than two years, the Pentagon has focused on supporting Ukraine and containing risks in the Middle East as Israeli forces fight Hamas. But China’s growing military remains the “pacing challenge” in the eyes of Pentagon planners: a long-term tectonic shift that could, if mismanaged, lead the United States into war with another nuclear-armed power. .
Pentagon officials have warned that People’s Liberation Army military planes and ships have become increasingly aggressive and reckless in tailgating and harassing U.S. military ships and planes flying near China, along with those of allies. such as Australia, often to gather intelligence information.
Austin may ask Admiral Dong for clarity on measures to avoid setbacks that could trigger a crisis, including a possible communications link between the US Indo-Pacific Command and the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, which covers the seas and skies around Taiwan. and the Western Pacific.
When Austin spoke to Admiral Dong via video in April, he “reiterated that the United States will continue to fly, sail and operate, safely and responsibly, wherever international law allows,” the Pentagon said at the time.
But Chinese officials have been cautious about making commitments. They reject the idea that China’s military behavior is destabilizing and that other countries have the right to operate so close to Chinese shores. In his view, accepting stricter rules on encounters between military aircraft and ships would simply give US forces greater license to approach the Chinese coast and collect useful images and signals.
The United States has by far the largest military in the world. The Pentagon’s budget remains about three times larger than China’s annual military spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
But Beijing does not have the same global commitments and operations as the U.S. military, and has focused on projecting power in Asia, especially toward Taiwan and across the seas, where Beijing maintains territorial disputes with neighbors from Japan to Indonesia.
Admiral Dong is likely to reiterate the Chinese government’s long-standing opposition to continued US support for Taiwan, especially in the form of arms sales.
Admiral Dong’s predecessor, General Li Shangfu, was under US sanctions and refused to hold talks with Austin in Singapore last year. Mr Austin and Admiral Dong previously spoke via video link in April. The last time Austin held face-to-face talks with a Chinese defense minister was in November 2022, when he met with General Wei Fenghe in Cambodia.
Friday’s meeting adds one more conversation to the list. That alone may be the only sign of progress.