Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin briefly spoke with his Chinese counterpart, Minster of National Defense Li Shangfu, on Friday at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Their short and nonsubstantive exchange comes as the Chinese side has ignored outreach from United States defense officials for months now. The Chinese government declined a U.S. request for Austin and Li to meet at the conference.
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“Secretary Austin and PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu spoke briefly at tonight’s opening dinner of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore," Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement. "The two leaders shook hands, but did not have a substantive exchange," he said. "The Department believes in maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication with the PRC — and will continue to seek meaningful military-to-military discussions at multiple levels to responsibly manage the relationship."
The decision to deny a Li-Austin meeting was "unfortunate," the U.S. defense secretary said a day earlier, while a senior defense official told the Washington Examiner earlier this week, "This is far from the first time that the PRC has rejected invitations to communicate from the Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or other Department officials. Frankly, it’s just the latest in a litany of excuses. Since 2021, the PRC has declined or failed to respond to over a dozen requests."
A day earlier, Lloyd said he was "concerned" that the silence from the Chinese could lead to an incident spiraling out of control.
"We're going to continue to do what we are doing in this region and others, and that is to work with like-minded countries who share common values and common goals to continue to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said during a press conference with Yasukazu Hamada, Japan’s minister of defense, on Thursday. "You've heard me talk a number of times about the importance of countries with large, with significant capabilities, being able to talk to each other so you can manage crises and prevent things from spiraling out of control unnecessarily."
Late last week, a Chinese fighter pilot flew directly in front of the nose of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 over the South China Sea, forcing the aircraft to fly through its wake turbulence, which the United States Indo-Pacific Command described as “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver."
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The Pentagon views China as its "pacing challenge" and describes the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, as the only power that has the intent and capability to reshape the international order in its favor. The description comes as China has modernized and expanded its military, with officials expressing a willingness to take Taiwan, the independent island it considers a part of its country, by force.
"By 2035, the PRC is on track to have as many as 1,500 nuclear warheads, one of the largest peacetime nuclear buildups in history," U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday at the 2023 Arms Control Association Annual Meeting.