Antony Blinken Fails to Restart U.S.-China Military-to-Military Communications

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged Monday he failed to get China to agree to restart U.S.-China military-to-military communications during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the administration’s long sought-after trip to Beijing.

“I think it’s absolutely vital that we have these kind of communications, military to military,” Blinken said at a press conference, noting recent interactions between the U.S. and Chinese military, such as a Chinese fighter jet buzzing a U.S. military plane in late May over the South China Sea.

“At this moment, China has not agreed to move forward with that. I think that’s an issue that we have to keep working on. It is very important that we restore those channels,” he said.

The Joe Biden administration is hoping Blinken’s trip will put the U.S.-China relationship on better footing after a series of previous visits angered Beijing, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) trip to Taiwan last year and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other lawmakers in California in March.

China considers Taiwan its territory and the U.S.’s strong relationship with the democratic nation to be interference in its internal affairs.

Watch: Biden’s Secretary of State Blinken Says “We Do Not Support Taiwan Independence” While Visiting China

Further roiling relations was that a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental U.S. earlier this year, in February. Blinken was scheduled to visit Beijing around that time but was forced to postpone the trip due to fury from both Republicans and Democrats about the balloon passing over and collecting intelligence on sensitive U.S. military sites.

Flashback — Tester: China Will Send More Balloons, and We Can’t Have Repeat of This; We Need a Plan So the Next One Is Disabled or Shot Down

Immediately after Blinken’s trip was postponed, the Biden administration tried to reschedule the meeting but was unable to until now.

Beijing has essentially frozen high-level military communications with the Pentagon and recently turned down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s proposal to speak to his Chinese counterpart at an Asian security conference in Singapore.

As such, one of the Biden administration’s requests for China during this trip was to restart U.S.-China military-to-military communications, particularly as China’s military has stepped up its aggressiveness towards Taiwan and as the U.S. military has sought to keep waterways in the region open for international passage and stave off further Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

Blinken said the Biden administration would “keep working on” restoring military-to-military relations with China.

He said:

If we agree that we have a responsibility to manage this relationship responsibly, if we agree that it’s in our mutual interests to make sure that the competitive aspects of the relationship don’t veer into conflict, then surely we can agree and see the need for making sure that the channels of communication that we’ve both said are necessary to do that include military-to-military channels.

“So this is something that we’re going to keep working on, and as I said, there’s no immediate progress, but it is a continued priority for us,” he added.

Austin, during a Friday press conference, said he would continue to try to speak to his counterpart. He said in response to a question, “I’m confident that over time that’s going to happen. We’re going to meet at some point in time, but we’re not there yet not because we didn’t try, and that we won’t continue to try.”

“The door is open, and my phone line is open, and so they can pick up the phone and call at any time and we will continue to work to make sure that we have open lines of communication,” he said.

“I think it’s important that countries with the significant military capacity and capabilities have the means to talk to each other so that we can manage potential crises and you know, make sure that, you know, things aren’t allowed to unnecessarily spiral out of control,” he added.

“You know, the kind of relationship that we want to have with China is one of competition and not one of contention, so we’ll continue to work to make sure that where and when possible, we open those lines of communication.”

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