Austin meets with Chinese counterpart for first time since 2022

SINGAPORE — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Chinese counterpart for the first time, ending an almost 18-month break since the two countries’ top defense officials last spoke in person.

According to a Pentagon readout of the meeting, Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun discussed Chinese military activities around Taiwan, U.S. operations in the region, North Korea, and China’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Senior U.S. defense officials, briefing reporters after the conversation, said Austin also discussed China’s “strategic capabilities” in regard to space and cyberspace as well as nuclear weapons. In the last several years, Beijing has grown its nuclear arsenal, more than doubling the number of warheads since the start of the decade , according to the Pentagon’s analysis.

Top American officials have been warning China for months that continued support for Russia’s defense industry — one of the main reasons Moscow has been able to quickly reconstitute its military — is unacceptable to Washington.

That message appeared again in this meeting, one of the American officials said.

“He [Austin] said quite clearly that if China’s support for Russia’s defense sector continues, then the United States with our allies will have to take further measures,” according to the official, who didn’t explain what those consequences would be.

Austin and Dong spoke on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue , a defense summit in Singapore that draws officials from across Asia. Austin has attended the event each year in his current role — except for a yearlong pause during the coronavirus pandemic — while the U.S. tries to work with more countries in the region, and do so more closely.

The Pentagon’s approach to the Indo-Pacific under the Biden administration has been defined by this kind of team building. The department has expanded defense agreements with Australia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and India, among other nations. It has also been able to convince existing allies, in particular Japan and South Korea , to improve their cooperation.

China’s military activities in the region are partly driving these efforts.

China has repeatedly harassed Philippine vessels trying to resupply an outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal — a reef in the South China Sea that China claims ownership over, despite a 2016 United Nations ruling stating otherwise . China and the Philippines are among several nations asserting sovereignty over local geographic features.

China has also grown more aggressive around Taiwan, running a large military exercise around the island weeks before the conference here . China’s government considers Taiwan a rogue province and has threatened to take it back by force.

Until late last year, China’s military was conducting what the Pentagon called a series of “unsafe and unprofessional” intercepts of U.S. and allied forces . That stopped late last year after President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in California.

Will Austin’s meeting make a difference?

Austin’s meeting with Dong is meant to help improve what some in the region consider an overly tense relationship. Beijing severed military communication with the United States after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in 2022. Since Biden and Xi spoke, the two countries have restarted such talks.

Austin and Dong spoke over the phone in April — the first time they talked. Dong is China’s third defense minister in as many years amid a purge of top military officials due to corruption in the People’s Liberation Army.

Last year at the same conference, China’s former defense minister declined an offer to meet with Austin, leading to a short handshake between the two. Even though communications have restarted, the lack of agreement between America and China overall often leaves little to talk about.

“I expect that very little will come out of it,” Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Sino-U.S. relations at the German Marshall Fund, said of the Austin-Dong summit. “I think it will be an exchange of talking points.”

Still, Glaser noted it’s good the two sides are engaging each other, a point echoed by the American officials traveling with Austin.

Per the readout, Austin and Dong discussed restarting communication between their two countries’ top military officers in the region — the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and China’s eastern and southern theater commanders.

The conversation also included mention of a Sino-U.S. “crisis-communications working group” that would convene by the end of the year.

A separate issue is candor, a second American official said, referencing China’s space, nuclear and cyber capabilities.

“It’s continuously been a challenge to engage on those issues,” the official noted.

Both Austin and Dong will speak at the conference over the weekend, a symbol of the relationship defining Indo-Pacific security. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, the think tank that hosts the Shangri-La Dialogue, released its annual report on the region ahead of the event . In it, experts warned of a “draining decade” marked by competition between the two superpowers that is spilling out beyond issues of security.

To that end, conversations only have so much value, the first American official noted. China “remains the Department of Defense’s pacing challenge, and no meeting will change that.”

Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

新加坡——美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀与中国国防部长首次会面，结束了两国最高国防官员上次面对面会晤以来近18个月的空白期。

根据五角大楼发布的会谈纪要，奥斯汀和中国国防部长董军海军上将讨论了中国在台湾周边的军事活动、美国在该地区的行动、朝鲜以及中国对俄罗斯在乌克兰战争的立场。

美国高级国防官员在会谈后向记者通报情况时表示，奥斯汀还讨论了中国在太空、网络空间以及核武器方面的“战略能力”。五角大楼的分析显示，过去几年，北京的核武库规模不断扩大，自本世纪初以来，核弹头数量增加了一倍多。

几个月来，美国高级官员一直警告中国，继续支持俄罗斯国防工业（莫斯科能够迅速重建军队的主要原因之一）是华盛顿无法接受的。

一位美国官员表示，这条信息在这次会议上再次出现。

据这位官员透露，“奥斯汀非常明确地表示，如果中国继续支持俄罗斯的国防工业，那么美国及其盟友将不得不采取进一步措施”，但他没有解释这些措施会带来什么后果。

奥斯汀和董在香格里拉对话期间进行了会谈。香格里拉对话是新加坡举行的防务峰会，吸引了来自亚洲各国的官员。奥斯汀在其现任职务上每年都参加该峰会——除了因新冠疫情而暂停一年——与此同时，美国正努力与该地区更多国家开展更紧密的合作。

拜登政府时期，五角大楼在印太地区的战略正是以这种团队建设为特征。国防部扩大了与澳大利亚、菲律宾、巴布亚新几内亚和印度等国的防务协议。此外，它还成功说服现有盟友，特别是日本和韩国，加强合作。

中国在该地区的军事活动在一定程度上推动了这些努力。

中国多次骚扰试图向仁爱礁（南海一处中国声称拥有主权的礁盘）上的菲律宾船只。尽管联合国2016年的裁决与此相反，但中国仍坚持对仁爱礁拥有主权。中国和菲律宾是众多声称对特定地理特征拥有主权的国家之一。

中国在台湾问题上也日益强硬，在会议召开前几周就在台湾岛周围举行了大规模军事演习。中国政府视台湾为叛离省份，并威胁要武力收复。

直到去年年底，中国军方还在进行一系列五角大楼所称的“不安全且不专业”的拦截美国及其盟军的行动。在拜登总统和中国国家主席习近平于加利福尼亚州会晤后，这些行动于去年年底停止。

奥斯汀的会面会带来改变吗？

奥斯汀与董建华的会晤旨在改善该地区一些人认为过于紧张的关系。2022年，时任美国众议院议长、加州民主党众议员南希·佩洛西访问台湾后，北京切断了与美国的军事通讯。自拜登与习近平通话以来，两国已重启此类对话。

奥斯汀和董建华四月份通过电话交谈，这是他们第一次通话。董建华是近三年来中国第三位国防部长，此前中国人民解放军因腐败问题对高层军官进行了清洗。

去年在同一会议上，中国前国防部长拒绝了与奥斯汀会面的提议，两人仅短暂握手。尽管双方沟通已经重启，但中美之间整体缺乏共识，导致双方鲜有对话可谈。

“我预计奥斯汀-董峰会不会取得太多成果，”德国马歇尔基金会中美关系专家邦妮·格拉泽在谈到此次峰会时表示，“我认为这将只是一次观点交换。”

不过，格拉泽指出，双方进行接触是件好事，这一点也得到了随奥斯汀出访的美国官员的认同。

根据新闻稿，奥斯汀和董讨论了恢复两国在该地区最高军事官员之间的沟通——美国印太司令部司令与中国东部和南部战区司令。

谈话中还提到，中美“危机沟通工作组”将于年底前召开会议。

另一位美国官员表示，坦诚是另一个问题，他指的是中国的太空、核能和网络能力。

这位官员指出：“就这些问题进行沟通一直是一个挑战。”

奥斯汀和董都将在周末的会议上发言，这象征着印太地区安全关系的核心。主办香格里拉对话的智库——国际战略研究所（ISS）在会议召开前发布了其年度区域报告。报告指出，专家警告称，未来十年将是“消耗巨大的十年”，美中两个超级大国之间的竞争已经蔓延到安全问题之外。

因此，对话的价值终究有限，第一位美国官员指出。中国“仍然是美国国防部在应对中国问题时需要把握节奏的一大挑战，任何会晤都无法改变这一点。”

诺亚·罗伯逊是《防务新闻》的五角大楼记者。他此前曾为《基督教科学箴言报》报道国家安全新闻。他拥有弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡威廉与玛丽学院的英语和政治学学士学位。