China’s defense chief turns down temperature on tensions with US
SINGAPORE—China’s defense minister sought to assuage fears of confrontation between the Chinese and American militaries a day after the U.S. defense chief did the same, part of an effort to manage tensions between the two global powers in a turbulent environment. He also warned Washington against testing Beijing’s limits on its core interests, in a sign of how delicate and tentative the rapprochement remains.
In a Sunday speech to a security forum in Singapore, Adm. Dong Jun nodded to tensions between to the two militaries in arguing for increased exchange and cooperation. “We believe that it’s precisely because the two militaries have differences that we need to communicate more," Dong told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of defense officials.
“Despite our different paths, we shouldn’t engage in confrontation with each other." Dong’s speech came the day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the dialogue that Washington doesn’t seek a contentious relationship with Beijing, and that a war with China is neither imminent nor unavoidable. Ahead of the dialogue, Austin and Dong spoke face-to-face for the first time in a 75-minute meeting on Friday, when they reaffirmed plans to reopen direct lines of communication.
Tensions between the U.S. and China have flared as both powers criticized each other’s military activities around the island democracy of Taiwan and in the South China Sea, where Beijing has asserted sovereignty claims. Communication between the two militaries had also lapsed in recent years, with Beijing saying that an emergency hotline gave the U.S.
cover to engage in provocative military operations in China’s backyard. The resumption of high-level military exchanges between the U.S. and
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