“Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe held an online meeting after 18 months without contact, which could be a sign of thawing in US-China relations.

On April 16, the Pentagon announced that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had held an online meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe to discuss defense relations and security issues both regionally and globally. The two sides also discussed the situation in Ukraine, the issue of North Korea, and Washington’s commitment to the ‘One China’ policy.

“Secretary Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining transparent communication between the US and Chinese militaries,” the Pentagon said. This marks the first exchange in nearly 18 months between the highest-ranking leaders in the defense sector of the two countries.

According to the Pentagon’s statement, Secretary Austin also called for the respect and ensuring of freedom of navigation in international waters, especially in the South China Sea. He reaffirmed that US forces will continue to move and operate ‘safely and responsibly in all seas and skies permitted by international law’.”

“Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, who took office in December 2023, believes that the two superpowers need to ‘accumulate strategic trust’, respect each other, and build a defense relationship that is ‘non-conflictual and non-confrontational’ in a spirit of pragmatism and cooperation.

“China and the US must see peace as the most valuable thing and stability as the most important,” Wei said during the online meeting. “The military domain is the key to stabilizing the development of relations and preventing serious crises.”

According to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Defense, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe emphasized during the online meeting that “Taiwan is a core issue in China’s core interests” and called on the US to “take specific actions to ensure regional peace.”

The last time Lloyd Austin met with his Chinese counterpart was in 2022 in Cambodia, when the Chinese Defense Minister was Wei Fenghe.

For nearly two years, high-level defense dialogue between the US and China has been almost frozen due to two diplomatic crises, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in mid-2022 and the US shooting down a Chinese balloon flying over its territory in early 2023.

In 2023, the US initiated multiple visits and resumed dialogue channels with China, aiming to reduce tensions and thaw relations between the two superpowers.

Following a sideline meeting at the APEC summit in California in November 2023, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to manage tensions in great power relations, including the proposal to resume bilateral defense dialogue.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Brown subsequently held a phone call with General Liu Chan, the Chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission of China, in December 2023.

China also agreed to send a delegation of defense officials to Washington for the 17th US-China Defense Policy Coordination Conference in January and to Honolulu for the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement talks earlier this month.