IRIA News

Senior military officials from China arrived in Washington this week to conduct high-level meetings with their U.S. counterparts as communication channels between the two countries resume after a yearlong pause.

The first round of defense talks for this year, officially called the Defense Policy Coordination Talks (DPCT), provided an opportunity for Washington and Beijing to express their concerns regarding regional and global security situation as well as arrange additional meetings throughout the year.

Defense cooperation between China and the U.S. had been cut off after former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in a highly controversial trip in the summer of 2022. Defense ties between the countries worsened more after the U.S. downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February of 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to initiate defense cooperation during their meeting in San Francisco as the two sides agreed to resume senior-level military communications. 

U.S. military’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown officially reopened talks after speaking with General Liu Zhenli, his Chinese counterpart from the People’s Liberation Army, in December 2023.

The latest meeting in Washinton was convened by the United States Department of Defense Deputy Assistant Secretary for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Michael Chase. Chase led a team mostly made up of Pentagon officials.

Major General Song Yanchao, the Deputy Director of China’s Central Military Commission’s Office for International Military Cooperation was leading a Chinese delegation made up of high-ranking officials from China’s People Liberation Army (PLA) and the Ministry of Defense.

The U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin, who is currently hospitalized due to medical complications, was not able to meet with the Chinese officials at the Pentagon.

A readout released by the Pentagon said that the delegations discussed operational safety, the war in Ukraine, recent behavior from North Korea, and U.S. policy toward Taiwan, among other topics.

“The two sides discussed U.S.-PRC defense relations, and Chase highlighted the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication in order to prevent competition from veering into conflict,” the statement added.

The two sides also discussed setting future meetings between high-ranking military and defense officials, and potentially a meeting between U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and China’s newly appointed Defense Minister Dong Jun.

Dong, a former naval commander, assumed the position in late December following the removal of his predecessor, Li Shangfu, from office.

Recovering relations

Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 brought the lowest point of military and defense cooperation between the world’s two largest economies. Her visit to Taipei angered Beijing as it claims the island as part of its territory and views visits by foreign government officials as recognition of the island’s sovereignty. She was the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.

According to the Pentagon’s recent reports on China’s military power, Beijing “denied, canceled or ignored” military-to-military communications and meetings with the Pentagon for much of the past two years. The report warned that the lack of such talks “raises the risk of an operational incident or miscalculation spiraling into crisis or conflict.”

China’s Defense Ministry released a statement following the latest meeting. The statement said that China is willing to develop healthy and stable military-to-military relations with the U.S. “based on equality and respect.”

It urged the U.S. to cut military deployment and “provocative actions” in the South China Sea, as well as halt support for such actions by “certain countries”, but did not identify them.