China’s Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu visiting Moscow in April: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
Originally published by ZeroHedge
The US confirmed Monday that Beijing continues resisting all military-to-military communications and contacts with the Pentagon.
The latest specific is that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reached out to his Chinese counterpart, Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu, offering a bilateral meeting to reestablish open dialogue. But General Li is under Washington sanctions, and Beijing stipulated that as a precondition for a meeting the Biden administration must lift the sanctions.
The US had proposed that the two military chiefs meet on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, but the offer was a non-starter over the punitive sanctions issue – sanctions which Li has been under since 2018.
At the recent G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden when asked had said the anti-China sanctions were “under negotiation” but there’ve been no signs of change happening since.
The Pentagon and US administration have placed sole blame on China for the collapse in dialogue among militaries, which is crucial to maintain in the interest of avoiding inadvertent conflict in regions such as in the South China Sea where both naval powers operate.
US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Ely Ratner said late last week the Pentagon “believes in the importance of open lines of communication with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and we have sought to build out those open lines of communication. Unfortunately… we’ve had a lot of difficulty when we have proposed phone calls, meetings, dialogues.”
“The US and Department of Defense have had an outstretched hand on this question of military to military engagement, but we have yet to have consistently willing partners,” Ratner emphasized further.
“The Pentagon’s attempts to reach out to China’s military in recent months have been ignored or rebuffed,” Ratner told an audience at the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But from the Chinese perspective, it seems only natural that if Austin wants to meet and have official dialogue with its defense chief Li, then personal sanctions on him must be dropped.
pissing in someone’s ear makes it hard for them to hear your requests.
why would anyone want to talk with liars.
bastardom sa to teraz vrátilo, ha, ha, ha … presne tak nie je o čom. sankcie bránia … zrušte sankcie a môžeme sa debatovať. to by znamenalo ale prehru, že? mysleniu zdar!!!
china and any other sovereign country need to continue to ignore the us “powers-that-be.” the us government, including their military, can never be trusted again. they lie, cheat, mislead, threaten and bully other countries around the world. because the us abuses its own citizens and those of other countries, it will never be “great again” no matter who is “installed as president in 2024.
never again will the sound of a harp or the voice of a singer be heard in your streets, babylon (usa)…
chinese general li is a boss.
so far, its lot of noise and nothing much happening: 2 nato bases in philippine and one nato office opening in japan. note that both a dual purpose: against china but also closing the ring around russia.
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn….but will china continue paying to feed the anglzionazi maggot?
paying? as in us treasuries? iirc, china’s been dumping them and now japan holds top spot.
ussa is going down the toilet and it doesn’t need the help of the dragon or the bear. history has a way of flushing stinky turds. meanwhile in slumville ussa the ethnics are tearing themselves to bits and cheap drugs and armed thugs will do the rest. get the civil war reloaded for the war to end all of pentacon’s bouts of judaic inspired genocide. zzzz
the red dragon and the bear will pluck the wings off the eagle.
too right! if he is sanctioned then he clearly can’t talk to a lying american pig.
there will be no resumption of dialogue until after 2028. biden is a no go and the expected gop win in 2024 will ensure zero dialogue. so the earliest is 2028 regardless of who wins in 2024.
china is right. why talking to the pentagon, they lie all the time. trust is a prerequisite to any discussion.