A key Biden administration goal for averting a future war with China through greater military-to-military exchanges went unmet as Chinese officials refused to reopen the communications channel during recent top-level talks in Beijing.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the fruits of his two-day mission to China on Sunday and Monday and the lack of Chinese response to resuming military communications, telling CBS News while in Beijing, “It’s a work in progress.”
Mr. Blinken said strengthening lines of communication is needed, and the Beijing trip was a beginning point for a major effort to keep U.S.-China competition from “veering into conflict.”
However, China’s refusal to engage in military-to-military communications was a clear setback for the trip.
“We don’t have an agreement on that yet. It’s something we’re going to keep working,” Mr. Blinken said.
China cut off all military dialogue and exchanges with the U.S. military in August 2021 to express anger at the visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which Beijing claimed violated previous diplomatic understandings on the issue. Since then, China has stepped up military activities around Taiwan with large-scale warplane flights and naval activities that U.S. officials say have upset the fragile status quo across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
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The secretary said he emphasized during meetings, including a 35-minute session with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the importance the Biden administration attaches to military communications in preventing an inadvertent conflict.
Asked if Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would hold talks with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, Mr. Blinken said such a discussion remains to be seen.
“We’ve made clear that we think that’s important – more than important, imperative,” he said. “I think the Chinese understand very well because I made very clear where we’re coming from on this and we’ll keep working on it.”
At the Pentagon, spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the Pentagon also holds out hope of restoring direct talks between Mr. Austin and Mr. Li.
“We have left that door open. [The Chinese] have chosen not to walk through that door,” she said.
The Pentagon is confident China at some point will agree to resume military-to-military engagement, and the Blinken visit may help “unlock” Chinese reluctance, Ms. Singh told reporters.
China turned down a meeting between Mr. Austin and Gen. Li during a recent defense conference in Singapore, citing in part the Trump administration’s decision to sanctions the Chinese general for his suspected role in China’s purchase of 10 Russian SU-35 jets in 2017, and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related gear in 2018.
China’s government has demanded the sanctions be lifted as a precondition for any Austin-Li meeting. President Biden recently suggested lifting the sanctions on the general was under consideration.
The State Department, however, said later the sanctions, imposed under the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, would not be lifted because they do not prevent Gen. Li from holding meetings with U.S. officials.
China, according to defense sources, is demanding other concessions from the United States in exchange for military engagements.
One concession the administration already made was giving in to a Chinese government demand not to release details obtained by the FBI on the equipment contained in a suspected surveillance balloon that traversed the United States in February before being shot down over the Atlantic by an F-22. The electronic gear was recovered from the balloon that the Pentagon has said was engaged in surveillance of sensitive U.S. military sites.
Beijing has also complained about U.S. military intelligence surveillance flights on its borders and the monthly Navy warship “freedom of navigation operations” in international waters near China, including the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, analysts said. Chinese government spokesmen have demanded a halt to the military operations.
Bargaining chip
Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, said last month that he favors holding talks with his Chinese military counterparts. But the four-star admiral said he is not ready to make concessions in exchange for meetings or phone calls with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leaders.
Adm. Aquilino has said he made standing requests to hold talks with PLA commanders of two military regions near Taiwan. So far, the requests were ignored.
“I do believe establishing routine communication between our two militaries is critical to responsibly manage competition, to mitigate risk, and to avoid miscalculation,” he said. But, he added, “I do not believe that engaging in an open and candid discussion should be used as a bargaining chip. The stakes today are too high, and the conflict costs would be too great.”
He did not elaborate what China was seeking in bartering for talks.
Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former intelligence chief for the Pacific Fleet, said the exuberance emanating on the U.S. side from Mr. Blinken’s visit and his meeting with Mr. Xi indicated a lack of understanding about how the Chinese Communist Party governs.
“Secretary Blinken admitted the Chinese Communist Party would not agree to the U.S. request to resume mil-to-mil dialogue, but asserted progress was made from this visit and that future visits would ensure a resumption of mil-to-mil dialogue,” Capt. Fanell said.
The statement by Mr. Blinken shows “a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Chinese Communist Party rules China, and the fact that no amount of dialogue with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can alter the strategic agenda of the CCP,” he said.
“Instead, what we have witnessed with Blinken’s visit is the realization that the CCP has got the U.S. Secretary of State on a hook, like a fisherman with a fish, and that they are slowly and surely reeling in their big catch — America,” Capt. Fanell said.
The United States “desperately needs leaders who are not going to be bamboozled by promises of ‘mutual respect’ and future conditions-based dialogue,” he said.
Miles Yu, a former State Department China policymaker in the Trump administration, said Mr. Blinken’s public push to resume direct U.S.-China military-to-military contacts was a goal Mr. Yu characterized as “a dream.”
“We’ve tried that for decades,” he said. “We have to understand the nature of the party-military relationship. The Chinese Communist Party would never allow its military to conduct independent communication with a Western military.”
During the 2001 incident involving the mid-air collision between a U.S. EP-3 surveillance aircraft and a Chinese interceptor jet, none of the Chinese military leaders would accept calls for U.S. military leaders, he said. Chinese military leaders also rejected phone calls from Mr. Austin after the suspected surveillance balloon was shot down.
The current Chinese military opposition to talks with U.S. counterparts is worse than during the Cold War, when Soviet military leaders regularly communicated with the American military, Mr. Yu said.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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