China snubs meeting request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Ryan King,
May 29, 2023 09:45 PM
China spurned a meeting request from top U.S. defense officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, before the annual security forum in Singapore, a Department of Defense official told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Earlier this month, officials from the United States proposed that Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu meet at the sidelines of the Singapore event amid frayed tensions between the two superpowers. Li is subject to U.S. sanctions, but Pentagon officials stress that doesn’t prevent him from meeting with Austin.
“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,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
China informed the U.S. of its decision to forgo the meeting “overnight,” per the Pentagon.
“This is far from the first time that the PRC has rejected invitations to communicate from the Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or other Department officials. Frankly, it’s just the latest in a litany of excuses. Since 2021, the PRC has declined or failed to respond to over a dozen requests,” a senior defense official told the Washington Examiner.
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip to China amid controversy over a spy balloon that floated across U.S. airspace. Eventually, the military shot down that balloon over the Carolina coast. That meeting with Blinken has not yet been rescheduled.
Tensions have been particularly strained by the military buildup in the South China Sea as well as the status of Taiwan, a self-governing island over which China claims sovereignty.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington for comment.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan conferred with Wang Yi, a top Chinese diplomat and former foreign affairs minister, in Vienna earlier this month. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also recently met with Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China Wang Wentao last week.
