Beijing refused a meeting with the US defense secretary, according to the Pentagon

Beijing has declined the invitation issued by the United States to organize a meeting this week in Singapore between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu, the Pentagon said Monday, deploring a "worrying" attitude. China "has informed the United States that it is declining our invitation issued in early May for Secretary Austin to meet with National Defense Minister Li Shangfu this week in Singapore," Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement.

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The People's Republic of China's worrying lack of willingness to engage in meaningful military-to-military discussions will not diminish our commitment to seek to open lines of communication with the Chinese military," the spokesperson added. Lloyd Austin is due to travel to Singapore this week to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue conference on Asia-Pacific defence and security. In the previous edition, in June 2022, he met Li Shangfu's predecessor, Wei Fenghe.

The current Chinese defense minister was sanctioned in 2018 by the US administration for buying Russian weapons, but the Pentagon assures that this does not prevent the US Secretary of Defense from conducting official exchanges with him. By the end of 2022, tensions between Beijing and Washington had escalated over Taiwan and a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by a US plane while flying over the US.

The US administration has since tried to strengthen alliances and partnerships in Asia to counter Beijing's increasingly assertive actions in the region, although both sides have also sometimes played appeasement. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met in May with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Vienna. And U.S. President Joe Biden recently indicated that relations between Washington and Beijing should "very soon" relax.