China declines invitation for meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin

By Le Figaro with AFP

Posted on 05/29/2023 at 23:14

Beijing has declined an invitation from the United States to hold a meeting this week in Singapore between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu, the Pentagon said on Monday, lamenting an attitude “worrying“. China “informed the United States that it was declining our invitation issued in early May for Secretary Austin to meet Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu this week in SingaporePentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement.

«The worrying unwillingness of the People’s Republic of China to engage in meaningful military-to-military discussions will not diminish our commitment to seek to open lines of communication with the military.Chinese, the spokesperson added. Lloyd Austin is due to travel to Singapore this week to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue Conference on Defense and Security in Asia-Pacific. During the previous edition, in June 2022, he met Li Shangfu’s predecessor, Wei Fenghe.

The current Chinese Minister of Defense was sanctioned in 2018 by the American administration for having bought Russian weapons, but the Pentagon assures that this does not prevent the American Secretary of Defense from carrying out official exchanges with him. At the end of 2022, tensions between Beijing and Washington had intensified around Taiwan and a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by an American plane while flying over the United States.

The US administration has since tried to strengthen alliances and partnerships in Asia in order to counter Beijing’s increasingly assertive actions in the region, even if the two camps have also sometimes played appeasement. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Vienna in May. And United States President Joe Biden recently indicated that relations between Washington and Beijing should “very soon” relax.