China rebuffs Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, blunting push for rapprochement

Beijing’s rejection of a US request for a meeting between their defence chiefs in Singapore sends an unusually blunt message.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. Picture: AFP.

China has rebuffed a US request for a meeting between their defence chiefs on the sidelines of an annual security forum in Singapore this coming weekend, the Pentagon said Monday, showing the limits of a tentative rapprochement between the two rival powers.

The decision by China formally to inform the Pentagon shuts the door for now on a meeting between Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister, which the U.S. had proposed on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.

China’s dismissal of the proposal also was termed an unusually blunt message, U.S. defence officials said. In the past, such meetings have come together at the last minute, including last year’s meeting between Austin and his then-counterpart, which was agreed upon hours beforehand.

“Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore this week,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The Department believes strongly in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.” China’s decision comes after a weeks-long effort by the U.S. to secure a meeting, including a letter from Austin to Li. China’s decline of the meeting could spark concerns among Southeast Asia allies nervous about being caught between the two powers, some U.S. officials warned. They held open the prospect of a Singapore meeting between lower-level officials.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We’ve had a lot of difficulty, in terms of when we have proposed phone calls, proposed meetings, dialogues, whether that’s the secretary” or other top U.S. defence leaders, Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific Security, said last week at an event at the Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Relations between Beijing and Washington have been fraught since February, after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, warned Beijing against arming Russia in the Ukraine war and allowed Taiwan’s president to stop off in the U.S.

Earlier this month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart in Vienna. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the two countries during the Biden administration.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang met with U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Beijing and delivered a stern message over Taiwan, accusing the U.S. of undermining the “hard won positive momentum of U.S.-China relations.” The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. has sought to improve military relations since the balloon incident, in part, to avoid miscommunication as both nations operate militarily throughout the Asia Pacific and amid rising tensions between the two countries over Taiwan.

In addition to the rebuffed Austin-Li meeting, the two sides have not yet rescheduled a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was postponed because of the balloon incident.

The decision by China to meet with some top U.S. officials, but not Austin and Li, appears to be a strategic choice, said Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“The Chinese believe they have the most leverage when dealing with officials who handle economic issues. So they are prioritising those engagements over ones involving national security,” Cooper said.

The administration has said it wants “open lines of communications” with Beijing but also has been unwilling to meet Beijing’s demand that the U.S. lift sanctions placed years ago on Li as a precondition for the Austin meeting.

The Biden administration is required to inform Congress should it decide to lift those sanctions, which the Trump administration imposed in 2018 because Li, then head of the Chinese military’s Equipment Development Department, approved the purchase of Russian jet fighters and missiles. He became defence minister this year.

Dow Jones