US Defense Secretary Austin set to meet Chinese counterpart in Singapore

TARA COPP and DIDI TANG, Associated Press

6 minutes ago

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, third from left, stands before Kenyan President William Ruto, not pictured, at the Pentagon in Washington, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, at a major defense conference in Singapore next week, the Pentagon announced Friday.

This will be the first meeting between the two defense leaders following a phone call in April. It comes as the United States and China have gradually worked to warm their relations, which had been largely frozen since a controversial visit by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022 led China to suspend temporarily most military communications.

Austin and Dong, China’s minister of national defense, are expected to meet next week at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, an annual meeting of defense ministers and government officials from more than 50 countries.

The meeting, however, also comes as China has engaged in aggressive military exercises around Taiwan, leading Taiwan to discourage jets and put its missile, naval and ground units on alert on Thursday.

China launched the exercises after the inauguration of the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te, and delivered a speech asking Beijing to stop its intimidation against the island but to face the reality of its existence. Beijing rejected his remarks as advocating separatism and launched military exercises.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and vows to seize it by force if necessary to achieve unification. The United States is required under federal law to ensure that the island can defend itself.

Following the exercises, the United States warned China not to use Taiwan’s political transition as a “pretext or excuse” for provocative or coercive measures, a defense official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been made public.

The two governments began to engage more after President Biden hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in November in California and stressed the need to keep communications open.

Dong is a former naval commander who was appointed in late December after the dismissal of his predecessor, Li Shangfu. Dong spoke by phone with Austin in April about issues including the war in Ukraine, freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, Taiwan and North Korea.

Austin last met with a Chinese defense minister in November 2022, when he and Wei Fenghe, then China’s defense minister, were in Cambodia for a regional defense ministers’ meeting.

No US defense secretary has visited China since Jim Mattis’ visit in 2018.