WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with China’s National Defense Minister Tuesday morning, in the latest in a series of U.S. steps to improve communications with the Chinese military and reduce unsafe and aggressive incidents in the Indo-Pacific.
It was the first time Austin has spoken with Admiral Dong Jun and the first time he has spoken at length with a Chinese counterpart since November 2022. The call, which lasted just over an hour, comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is speaking. is expected to travel to China this month for talks.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said Austin “stressed the importance of continuing to open military-to-military lines of communication” between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. And he underlined the importance of respect for freedom of navigation on the seas, especially in the South China Sea.
Washington and Beijing have been working to expand communications and reduce escalating tensions. Military-to-military contact came to a standstill in August 2022, when Beijing suspended all such communications following then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
The thaw in relations between the two world powers got a kick-start last November when President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. About a month later, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Chinese counterpart in a video call — in the first senior military-to-military contact since Pelosi’s visit.
Austin’s call with Dong was widely anticipated, but the admiral was not appointed to the defense role until December. Previous Defense Minister Wei Fenghe rejected a Pentagon request to speak with Austin last year after the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon floating through the country. Austin had met Wei earlier in 2022 on the sidelines of a defense conference in Cambodia.
Defense officials are concerned about unsafe and unprofessional incidents involving U.S. and Chinese militaries in the Pacific.
Pelosi’s visit sparked a wave of military maneuvers by China. Beijing sent warships and aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, claiming the de facto border did not exist, fired missiles over Taiwan itself and challenged established norms by firing missiles into Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone Japan.
Over the next two years, U.S. military officials repeatedly objected to a series of unsafe interceptions by Chinese aircraft in the Pacific and other dangerous incidents. Some of those confrontations have died down, but the US is concerned about Chinese ships’ aggressive behavior against Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.
Ryder said that in his conversation with Dong, Austin also discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine, concerns about North Korea and the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
A senior defense official told reporters that Austin’s call on Tuesday gives the US a chance to prevent its ongoing competition with China from turning into a conflict. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the call, said the US has not seen any unsafe or unprofessional interceptions of US aircraft since November last year, but that China’s coercive behavior towards Philippine ships threatens to escalate.
U.S. and Chinese defense officials met in Hawaii earlier this month to discuss aggressive shipping and aircraft incidents between the two militaries in the Pacific. The two-day China-US Military Maritime Consultative Agreement was attended by about 18 military and civilian personnel from both sides and was the first time since 2019 that it was held in person. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a virtual meeting.