The meeting in Singapore between Lloyd Austin and Dong Jun marks the first substantive face-to-face talks between the two nations in 18 months.
US and Chinese defense chiefs held rare direct talks in Singapore, offering hope that greater military dialogue could help prevent disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea from spiraling out of control.
Lloyd Austin and Dong Jun met on Friday morning on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue to hold their first substantive face-to-face discussion in 18 months.
They began negotiations at the luxury hotel hosting the security forum, officials said. The meeting took place after a video conference in April.
Defense chiefs and officials from around the world take part in the annual forum that in recent years has become a barometer of US-China relations.
This year’s edition comes a week after China held military exercises around Taiwan and warned of war on the US-backed island following the inauguration of President William Lai Ching-te, who Beijing described as a “separatist dangerous”.
The dispute over democratic Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, tops the list of differences between the rivals.
Beijing is furious about Washington’s deepening defense ties in the Asia-Pacific, particularly with the Philippines, and its regular deployment of warships and fighter planes in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
In recent weeks, the Philippines has hosted the largest-ever joint military exercise with the US. On Thursday, China’s Defense Ministry strongly condemned the deployment of a US intermediate-range missile system in the northern Philippines during military exercises in April, saying it “brought enormous risks of war to the region.”
China sees the activities as part of a decades-long U.S. effort to contain them.
Easing friction
President Joe Biden’s administration and China have been stepping up communication to ease friction between the nuclear-armed rivals, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken visiting Beijing and Shanghai last month.
A main focus has been the resumption of dialogue between military personnel.
China halted military communications with the United States in 2022 in response to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing rose further during 2023 over issues including an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over US airspace, a meeting between then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and Pelosi’s successor, Kevin McCarthy, and American military aid to Taipei.
The two sides agreed, following a summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Biden in November last year, to restart high-level military talks.
This includes a communications channel between the head of the US Asia-Pacific command and Chinese commanders responsible for military operations near Taiwan, Japan and the South China Sea.
Chinese and U.S. forces have had a series of close encounters in the disputed waterway that China claims almost entirely.
Austin warned before Biden and Xi agreed to resume military-to-military dialogue that accidents have the potential to spiral out of control, especially in the absence of open lines of communication between U.S. and Chinese forces.
In a post on X on Friday announcing his arrival in Singapore, Austin said he would meet with regional counterparts and continue his department’s work with “like-minded Indo-Pacific partners to advance our shared vision for a free region and open.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
