WASHINGTON – The top military officials from the US and China held a long-awaited call Thursday, ending a 16-month standoff during which Beijing cut all armed forces contacts with Washington.
Chief of the Joint Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown and his counterpart, Gen. Liu Zhenli of China’s Joint Staff, spoke via videoconference to discuss “a number of global and regional security issues,” according to the Pentagon.
“General Brown discussed the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations, and maintain open and direct lines of communication,” Joint Staff Spokesperson Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey said in a statement.
“Gen. Brown reiterated the importance of the People’s Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings,” he added.
It was the first time that any Pentagon official has spoken with a Chinese military leader since August 2022, when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a controversial trip to Taiwan.
The move infuriated China – which has said its No. 1 goal is to absorb the island – and Beijing cut off dialogue with the US.
The call came about a month after President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping while the two were in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Resuming military-to-military communications was one of the major agreements to come out of the hours-long meeting.
Critical calls
During China’s silent treatment, defense officials repeatedly bemoaned the lack of contact between the two adversaries, calling it dangerous to close lines of communication in the event of a close call, troubling interaction, or other misunderstanding.
“Beijing has consistently denied or ignored US requests for defense engagements at multiple levels,” the Defense Department said. “Those concerns have been amplified as US officials observe increasingly provocative and risky behavior on the part of China’s military.“
The point was made clear early this year when the US military detected a Chinese spy balloon entering US airspace.
Beijing ignored the Pentagon’s calls seeking an explanation, opting to publicly deny intentionally sending the balloon into US airspace and claiming it was a civilian airship that blew off course.
The balloon ultimately traversed US airspace from Alaska to North Carolina, where the Air Force finally shot down the surveillance craft after its weeklong trip over the country, irking Beijing.
While Thursday’s call brought optimism, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder declined to say whether Liu had agreed to continue regular communication or reactivate the military-to-military emergency hotline.
“I’m not going to speak for China, but clearly … we’re going to continue to do everything we can do to keep those lines of communication open,” he said.
Still, Dorsey said Brown advocated during the call for regular conversations on “defense policy coordination” and opening communications between the commanders of the US Indo-Pacific Command and China’s eastern and southern theater commands.
Avoiding unintentional conflict
Brown also called for resuming the countries’ commitments to the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, which was signed in 1998 and established a routine of regular talks between the two nations on maritime safety until the US-China relationship soured in 2020.
Maritime talks are critical to maintaining peace in the western Pacific, where the US Navy regularly patrols and challenges Beijing’s illegal claims to islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
There have been multiple close calls and dangerous encounters between the two nations’ navies over the past year as the Chinese military attempted to chase away US ships in international waters.
“China respects the rights of navigation and overflight entitled to all countries in the South China Sea in accordance with international law,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang. “However, we firmly oppose any action that undermines China’s sovereignty and security in the name of freedom of navigation and overflight.”
Such risks also extend to the air. Between 2021 and 2023, the US saw China conduct more than 180 “coercive and risky air intercepts” with American military aircraft in the region, according to the Pentagon’s latest China Military Power report.
“Defense officials have noted a steep rise in China’s risky and aggressive intercepts of US aircraft operating in international airspace in accordance with international law,” according to the DoD.
Should lines of communication remain open, the Pentagon hopes to avoid miscalculations after such encounters that otherwise could unintentionally spark conflict – or even war.
While Brown “regularly communicates with chiefs of defense across the world,” Dorsey said, it was the first time he had such a high-profile call since taking over the position from Army Gen. Mark Milley in September.
“[He] remains open to constructive dialogue with the PRC,” said Dorsey, using the official acronym for China.