Basic Charles Q Brown, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Workers, stresses want for dialogue to keep away from miscalculations in talks with PLA’s Basic Liu Zhenli.
The highest army officer from the USA has held a digital assembly along with his Chinese language counterpart, the Pentagon mentioned, within the first such dialog in additional than a yr.
Beijing stopped such high-level talks after then-US Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited self-ruled Taiwan in August 2022.
The 2 international locations’ leaders lastly agreed to renew them once they met final month.
US Air Power Basic Charles Q Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, and Basic Liu Zhenli of China’s Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) touched on “a number of global and regional security issues” throughout their on-line dialogue, Brown’s workplace mentioned in a press release.
Liu is the chief of the Joint Workers Division of the Central Navy Fee (CMC), the army physique chargeable for China’s fight operations and planning.
Brown “discussed the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations and maintain open and direct lines of communication,” spokesman Captain Jereal Dorsey mentioned in a press release.
“General Brown reiterated the importance of the People’s Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.”
Brown mentioned final month he had despatched an introductory letter to Liu saying he was open to assembly.
Liu mentioned the important thing for the US and China to develop a wholesome, steady and sustainable military-to-military relationship was for the US to have a “correct understanding of China”, in response to a Chinese language defence ministry assertion that was launched late on Thursday.
US officers have cautioned that even with some restoration of army communications, it was more likely to take a while to develop a useful dialogue between the 2 sides who stay at odds over a variety of points from Taiwan to the South China Sea and commerce.
China claims Taiwan as its personal territory and has mentioned it’s prepared to make use of pressure as a way to obtain its goals.
US President Joe Biden met his Chinese language counterpart Xi Jinping in California in November with the 2 males agreeing to revive military-to-military communications as a part of an effort to ease tensions.
Pentagon spokesman Main Basic Pat Ryder described Thursday’s name between Brown and Liu as a “positive development”, saying that the 2 sides had been working to implement what had been introduced by Xi and Biden.
“When you have two large militaries, it’s imperative that we keep lines of communication open in order to prevent miscalculation,” Ryder mentioned.
Throughout the talks, Liu additionally requested for the US to respect China’s territorial sovereignty, and expansive maritime rights and pursuits within the South China Sea.
China claims nearly the complete sea underneath its so-called nine-dash line and has ignored a 2016 arbitral ruling that discovered it was with out authorized benefit.
Tensions have risen this yr, notably with the Philippines, which has accused the Chinese language coast guard and different Chinese language vessels of harmful actions at Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal.
Liu has emerged as the highest contender to exchange China’s nationwide defence minister, Basic Li Shangfu, who was fired in October two months after disappearing from public view.
Li was positioned underneath US sanctions in 2018 and had snubbed Washington’s efforts to renew contact.
Whereas high-level military-to-military ties between the US and China had been reduce off, different prime US officers had been nonetheless in communication with Beijing, and lower-level army talks continued.