Secretary of Protection Lloyd J. Austin III mentioned issues of mutual concern with Chinese language Protection Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe in Siem Reap, Cambodia, at the moment.
The 2 protection leaders are attending the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations protection ministers’ assembly. The secretary final met China’s protection chief on the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore in June.
Final week, President Joe Biden met with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia. The 2 leaders agreed it is necessary that their international locations work collectively to make sure that competitors doesn’t veer into battle.
“Secretary Austin has spoken often about significance of open strains of communication between main powers together with the USA within the PRC [China], and at the moment he was following up on that, that dialogue,” stated a senior protection official on the conclusion of the assembly.
Nonetheless, competitors stays the defining characteristic of the connection between the 2 nations, the official stated, and Austin expressed some issues about China’s navy habits. He additionally pressed the Chinese language to renew navy dialogues and mechanisms to assist handle that competitors responsibly.
Re-starting already established mechanisms would assist scale back the chance of misperception and miscalculation in disaster. “Secretary Austin additionally voiced concern a couple of sample of unsafe or dangerous PLA [People’s Liberation Army] air intercepts as an space of explicit concern,” the official stated.
The 2 sides ran via plenty of regional points together with Russia, North Korea, and Taiwan.
“On Russia, the secretary reiterated the factors that got here out of President Biden’s assembly with President Xi … of robust opposition to the use or risk of use of nuclear weapons,” the official stated. The secretary additionally spoke of China “to extra faithfully endorse or implement U.N. Safety Council resolutions.”
The 2 leaders had a “prolonged change” about Taiwan, with Austin reiterating that U.S. coverage in the direction of Taiwan has not modified. America continues to oppose unilateral adjustments to the established order, and the USA will proceed to meet its commitments underneath the Taiwan Relations Act, the official stated.
The 2 talks U.S. officers want to see resumed are the Protection Coverage Coordination talks and the Maritime Army Consultative Settlement. The primary is anxious with protection coverage, and the second is a panel the place operators can maintain discussions round secure {and professional} interplay within the air and at sea.
The secretary additionally reaffirmed that the USA will proceed to fly, sail and function wherever worldwide regulation permits.
