The Pentagon is seeking a meeting between US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart in Singapore next month, people familiar with the matter said, as US President Joe Biden’s administration tries again to restart military contacts, despite China’s earlier refusal.
The people with knowledge of the US outreach to Chinese Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu (李尚福) asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
The US Department of Defense and the Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Photo: EPA-EFE
If Beijing accepts, the meeting between Austin and Li would be the most senior in-person meeting between the two sides since an alleged Chinese spy balloon transited the US in February and sent relations to a new low.
China has rebuffed multiple requests for Austin or General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, to speak by phone with their Chinese counterparts since then.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) visit to the US to and from Central America in recent weeks only added to strains.
The proposed Austin-Li meeting would take place on the sidelines of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security forum in Singapore. Austin met Li’s predecessor, Wei Fenghe (魏鳳和), at the same event last year.
Biden has repeatedly stressed the need to place “guardrails” around the increasingly combative relationship, but China says those efforts are not genuine. A long-anticipated call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has yet to take place.
Any meeting would be awkward for both sides. The US slapped sanctions on Li in 2018 for allegedly aiding in the transfer of Su-35 combat aircraft and S-400 missile system equipment from Russian arms seller Rosoboronexport to China.
It also puts China in a difficult position. Beijing has sought to use access to its top leaders as leverage, insisting that the US must adopt friendlier policies first, although refusing to meet in Singapore would risk irking other countries in a region that are pressing both sides to ease tensions.
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