WASHINGTON - China’s ambassador to the United States held a rare meeting at the Pentagon on Wednesday with the top US defence official for Asia, the Pentagon said, in talks that followed US criticism of Chinese reluctance to engage in military communications.
A brief Pentagon statement said Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng discussed defence relations and “a range of international and regional security issues” in talks with Mr Ely Ratner, a US assistant secretary of defence.
“Ratner also underscored the Department’s commitment to maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between the United States and the PRC,” Pentagon spokesman Martin Meiners said, using the acronym for China’s official name.
The discussions lasted about 90 minutes, Lieutenant-Colonel Meiners said.
In a statement early on Thursday, China’s embassy in Washington said Mr Xie urged the US to meet China halfway to gradually return relations between the two countries and their militaries to the right track.
“A healthy and stable China-US relationship is in the common interest of both countries,” Mr Xie said in the meeting, according to the statement.
Mr Xie also requested “the US side to take action to remove obstacles, manage differences, handle Taiwan and other important and sensitive issues cautiously in accordance with the principles of the three Sino-US joint communiques.”
Ms Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre, said the meeting was “quite unusual.”
“The Chinese ambassador does not often meet with US senior defence officials,” Ms Sun said.
“It suggests China is at least responding to US concerns, but the actual progress still requires time and negotiations.”
With US-China relations at a low over national security issues, including Taiwan, US export bans on advanced technologies and China’s state-led industrial policies, Washington has been trying to repair ties between the world’s two biggest economies.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited China earlier this month and climate envoy John Kerry is expected to visit next week. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to Beijing in June, the first trip to China by a US secretary of state since 2018.
But Beijing snubbed US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s efforts to hold an in-depth meeting with his Chinese counterpart at a defence forum in Singapore in June, and military communications have stalled.
“We have regularly reached out to thicken our crisis communications and crisis management channels with Beijing and they have serially pushed us off,” Mr Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, told a forum in London on July 10.
China has publicly cited US sanctions as an obstacle to military dialogue. Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has been sanctioned since 2018 over the purchase of combat aircraft and equipment from Russia’s main arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.
But Mr Kahl said in London that China appeared to be concerned that Washington was going to use crisis management channels “so we can have more crises”.
“When we have these conversations with them, they’re like: ‘If you don’t want crises, there’s a simple answer... Get out. Like, you’re not a Pacific power,” Mr Kahl said, adding that was a strange thing to hear as someone from the Pacific coast state of California.
Ms Sun said Beijing was unlikely to accept a defence minister-level meeting with Mr Austin unless Washington addresses the sanction on Mr Li.
“Some have argued that the Li-Austin meeting would be a prerequisite for working-level mil-to-mil to resume. It doesn’t have to be, but it makes sense given the protocol,” Ms Sun said. REUTERS
