The United States has been attempting to set up a meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu.
China has denied the United States’ proposal for a defense chiefs’ meeting this week, the Pentagon announced on Monday. The announcement comes amid renewed diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
“Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary [Lloyd] Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore,” the Pentagon told the Wall Street Journal.
The statement read, “The Department strongly believes in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to prevent competition from escalating into conflict.”
According to an unnamed US defense official quoted by the WSJ, China’s rejection was “an unusually blunt message.”
The Pentagon intended the meeting to occur alongside the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum, according to the report. The Chinese Defense Ministry stated that Li will speak at the event as part of his trip to Singapore from May 31 to June 4.
The Pentagon reported last week that attempts to establish contact with their Chinese counterparts over the past few months have been unsuccessful.
This month, the Financial Times reported that Beijing informed Washington that there was “little chance” of a meeting between Li and Austin due to the sanctions imposed on the Chinese defense minister for his alleged role in the purchase of Russian armaments. In March, Li was appointed to his current position, succeeding Wei Fenghe.
Last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry questioned the sincerity of Washington’s desire to engage in dialogue while concurrently “suppressing China by all means possible” and imposing restrictions on Chinese officials and entities.
Earlier this month, at a summit in Hiroshima, Japan, the G7 released a joint statement containing a laundry list of accusations against China, including “economic coercion,” human rights abuses, and the instigation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing accused the collection of nations headed by the United States of attempting to impose their will on others and interfering in China’s internal affairs.
