US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Charles Brown Jr spoke with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenli (劉振立) for the first time in a call that the administration of US President Joe Biden billed as a further sign that ties between the two countries’ militaries might be getting back to normal.
The US Department of Defense said that the video call between Brown and Liu, held on Thursday morning Washington time, included discussion of working together to avoid miscalculations and maintaining open lines of communication.
A senior US military official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, credited a meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in California last month for opening the way to restore contacts that had been severed since then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August last year.
Photo: Reuters
The official said future steps include plans to hold talks next month on defense policy and a round of maritime consultations in the spring.
This would be the first time the two sides have held the defense policy coordination talks, intended to be an annual dialog, since Beijing canceled them following Pelosi’s trip. It would also be the first in-person edition since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A summary of the call from the Chinese Ministry of Defense stressed that Washington needs to understand and respect Beijing’s interests and concerns — including its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The ministry also said the status of Taiwan is an internal matter and that US interference will not be tolerated.
The meeting is a sign both sides want to sustain more stable engagement, according to Eurasia Group.
However, it is “unlikely that military-to-military engagement will lead the People’s Liberation Army to significantly scale back operations such as intentional intercepts of US aircraft in the South China Sea,” analysts including Anna Ashton wrote in a note.
The US and China had previously accused each other of provocative or unprofessional actions during repeated encounters by military craft in and around the South China Sea.
However, on Monday, US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral John Aquilino said China has stopped “dangerous” military actions in the weeks since the Biden-Xi meeting.
Brown on Dec. 2 said that he was “standing by” for an opportunity to speak with Liu, touting the importance of maintaining communications with adversaries “to prevent miscalculation.”
Last time a US Joint Chiefs chairman spoke with his Chinese counterpart was in July last year, US officials said.
They said conversations with Beijing are ongoing about future contacts among senior US and Chinese officials, but did not provide time lines for any future conversations involving US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin or others.
The Chinese government has not yet named a new minister of national defense following the October ouster of former minister of national defense Li Shangfu (李尚福), while the US officials suggested this was expected to occur in March.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS