US and China Defense Officials Are Talking Again

The Pentagon's most senior official for China reconnected with the Chinese defense establishment last month after Beijing suspended military-to-military dialogue earlier this year over a secret visit to Taipei, according to the Financial Times.

Michael Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, held talks in Washington, D.C., with Maj. Gen. Liu Zhan, the defense attache at the Chinese Embassy, the newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The meeting came shortly before U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a long-awaited summit in November on the margins of the APEC leaders' summit, where the White House said the resumption of defense talks, especially at a time of high tension, was among the deliverables.

Chase's secret trip to Taiwan in February had previously derailed high-level military dialogue between the two superpowers, the FT said. It was his first visit there since assuming the role and the first by a senior U.S. defense official since 2019.

Chase also became the first deputy assistant secretary of defense for China to set foot on the island since Washington and Beijing established formal diplomatic ties in 1979, at Taipei's expense.

Neither the U.S. Defense Department nor Taiwan's Defense Ministry commented on the specifics of Chase's visit. The Pentagon did not disclose the recent meeting between Chase and Liu either.

Beijing claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own, despite Taipei's rejections, while the U.S. has been the island's main arms supplier for decades. Taipei and Washington have stepped up joint defense planning, mostly behind closed doors, to better prepare Taiwan for any future military moves by Beijing across the Taiwan Strait.

The restart of U.S.-China defense talks was a meaningful step toward stabilizing rocky relations between the two governments, who remain at loggerheads over a wide range of issues as part of their broader strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region.

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a quiet war over trade and high technology for years. They continue to tussle with each other for influence over international governance, and they remain at odds over the future status of Taiwan, whose democratic society has little interest in a political union with China.

When Biden met Xi last month in California, the two leaders agreed to resume military-to-military dialogue, but that has yet to take place at the highest level, between U.S. defense chief Llyod Austin and a suitable opposite number in Beijing.

Part of the reason for the delay could be China's failure so far to appoint a new defense minister, after Li Shangfu was dismissed from the position in October without an official explanation.

Li, like the country's former foreign minister before him, disappeared from the public eye for several weeks before Beijing formally axed him.

China has repeatedly rebuffed the Pentagon's request for Austin to meet senior members of the Central Military Commission, which is chaired by Xi and considered much closer to the Communist Party decision-making circle.