Beijing rejected a Pentagon request that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meet with his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, at a security forum in Singapore in June, the latest sign of difficulties the two countries are having in trying to stabilize volatile relations.
A meeting has been proposed at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the annual security event in Asia organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The People’s Republic of China notified the United States that they declined our early May invitation,” the Pentagon said.
The Financial Times reported this month that China told the United States that the talks were unlikely as long as Washington maintained sanctions against Li, imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 over Chinese purchases of Russian fighter jets and missiles. .
The Pentagon had previously informed China that the sanctions did not prohibit the meeting in Singapore, but Beijing said it would not be appropriate to hold the meeting as long as the sanctions were in place.
“This is far from the first time China has declined an invitation to communicate from the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or other (Defense Department) officials,” said a senior U.S. defense official. “Frankly, this is just the latest in a string of excuses.”
The official added that since 2021, China has refused or failed to respond to more than a dozen high-level meeting requests, in addition to numerous working-level meeting requests.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It is worrying that the Chinese do not see the inherent risk of a prolonged disruption of U.S.-China military dialogue,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund.
The Shangri-La Dialogue regularly becomes one of the few forums where the U.S. defense secretary meets his Chinese counterpart. Austin met with then-Secretary of Defense Wei Fenghe last year. China’s defense minister confirmed on Monday that Li Keqiang would attend the event.
Less than two weeks ago, President Biden told the G7 meeting in Japan that he expected an imminent “thaw” in U.S.-China relations, which are at their lowest point in decades. Biden said he was considering lifting sanctions against Lee, but the State Department later said that was not the case.
In a rare positive sign, U.S. national security adviser Jack Sullivan recently met China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, in Vienna. Last week, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in Washington, the first visit by a senior Chinese official to the U.S. capital since 2020. He also met with U.S. Trade Representative Kathleen Day at the APEC trade conference in Detroit.
But China has yet to agree to reschedule a visit to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who canceled a previous visit in February over an alleged Chinese spy balloon incident.
“The Chinese continue to pick and choose who they want to deal with,” Glaser said, adding that they preferred economic officials such as Raimondo or Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “If the Chinese really want to stabilize the bilateral relationship, they need to resume the military dialogue.”