(Singapore) Dialogue between the United States and China is “essential” and will help avoid miscalculations that could lead to conflict, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Saturday.
Mr Austin was speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Defense Dialogue Conference, after Beijing declined an invitation for a formal meeting between him and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu. The two ministers, however, shook hands and spoke to each other for the first time during the opening dinner of this conference.
“The United States believes that open lines of communication with the People’s Republic of China are essential, especially between our military and defense officials,” Austin said in remarks.
“The more we talk, the more we can avoid misunderstandings and misjudgments that could lead to crisis or conflict,” he added.
The United States had invited Mr. Li to meet Mr. Austin on the sidelines of the conference. But Beijing refused, an official spokeswoman saying that “the United States clearly knows why there are currently difficulties in military communication” between the two countries.
Li Shangfu, who became defense minister last March, was sanctioned by the US government in 2018 for buying Russian weapons. But the Pentagon says that does not prevent Mr. Austin from having a formal dialogue with him.
“A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for a substantial commitment,” the US minister lamented at the conference.
“Stop provoking”
Chinese Army Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo also said during the forum that lines of communication between the two countries are essential, while calling on the United States “to stop provoking China’s security”.
Lloyd Austin is currently on an Asia tour which has already taken him to Japan and which will also include a visit to India. The trip is part of Washington’s efforts to strengthen its alliances and partnerships in the region in the face of the rise of China.
In addition, Mr. Austin said he was “deeply concerned that (China) has not been willing to engage more seriously in improving the crisis management mechanisms between our two armies”, adding that he hoped that Beijing changes its mind.
He also criticized China for carrying out “an alarming number of risky interceptions of American and allied aircraft flying legally in international airspace”, echoing in particular a recent incident in the South China Sea between a Chinese fighter plane and an American aircraft.
Preserving the status quo
A Chinese fighter jet pilot carried out “an unwarranted aggressive maneuver” last week near a US reconnaissance aircraft flying over the South China Sea, US military officials said.
Video images released on May 30 by the American army showed the Chinese plane passing in front of an American aircraft, which can be seen shaken by the turbulence resulting from this passage.
From the perspective of a Chinese military spokesperson, the US plane “deliberately burst” into a Chinese training area “to carry out reconnaissance (operations).”
Tensions are at their peak between Beijing and Washington, particularly over Taiwan and following a Chinese balloon overflight of US territory earlier this year.
Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, China has viewed Taiwan as a province that it has yet to successfully reunify with the rest of its territory, and Beijing aims for such reunification by force if necessary.
While relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated further in recent years, China has stepped up military incursions around the island.
In April, the Chinese army organized major military maneuvers which simulated an encirclement of the island for three days, carried out in retaliation for stops a few days earlier by the Taiwanese president in the United States.