U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Chinese counterpart for more than an hour Friday, as the two countries seek to repair lines of communications between their militaries that could be critical as tensions continue to rise between the two in the Indo-Pacific region.
U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, center, walks out after a bilateral meeting with China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun on the sidelines of the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue summit at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore Friday, May 31, 2024. —
Beijing in recent years has been rapidly expanding its navy and is becoming growingly assertive in pressing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which has led to an increasing number of direct conflicts with other countries in the region, most notably the Philippines and Vietnam. Since territorial hostilities with China surged last year in the South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has taken steps to forge new security alliances with a number of Asian and Western countries and allowed a U.S. military presence in more Philippine bases under a 2014 defense pact.
“I don’t think these countries are really looking to go to war with each other, but the concern with these skirmishes is that sometimes when you have a miscalculation, then things could rapidly deteriorate into the use of force,” he said. Austin told Dong that China “should not use Taiwan’s political transition — part of a normal, routine democratic process — as a pretext for coercive measures,” Ryder said.
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