BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed optimism on Friday that he would eventually hold talks with his Chinese counterpart after being snubbed by Beijing during an event in Singapore earlier this month.
“I’m confident that, over time, that’s going to happen. We’re going to meet at some point in time. But we’re not there yet,” Austin told a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Austin’s comments came ahead of a high-profile trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China on June 18 and 19, the first by a high-ranking U.S. official since Biden took office in January 2021.
One of Blinken’s objectives will be to manage escalation to ensure that the world’s two biggest military powers do not “veer in to conflict,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in Tokyo.
Relations between the United States and China are increasingly acrimonious, with friction over issues from Taiwan and China’s military activity in the South China Sea to U.S. efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry.
The U.S. military has responded by pushing for open lines of communication with their Chinese counterparts – both at senior and working levels – to mitigate the risk of potential flare-ups, something it has long advocated.
China’s leaders, by contrast, have been slow to establish military contacts and quick to shut them down during periods of diplomatic tension.
Chinese officials have blamed the United States for a breakdown in dialogue by ramping up sanctions on Chinese officials and they bristle at the U.S. military presence in region, especially naval transits through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
Austin said he has not reached out since China declined to hold formal talks with him at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, in Singapore.
“I’ve not reached out since (Singapore). But again, the door is open and my phone line is open. And so they can pick up the phone and call at any time. And we will continue to work to make sure that we have open lines of communication,” Austin said.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray, Sabine Siebold and Phil Stewart; Editing by Alistair Bell)
