By Courtney Kube - NBC News
Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Chinese counterpart Thursday morning, according to a document that disclosed the contents of the call. It was the first high-level talks between the two militaries in more than a year.
China broke off direct military contacts with U.S. forces in the wake of Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Brown's predecessor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, had spoken with his Chinese counterpart a month earlier.
Brown's video call with Gen. Liu Zhenli occurred at 6:30 a.m. ET and the outcome of talks between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at last month's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where they agreed to resume communications between their military, according to a senior U.S. military official.
NBC News previously reported that following the announcement, according to three senior U.S. officials, U.S. defense officials repeatedly tried to contact their Chinese counterparts but received no response.
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The transcript of Thursday's call shows that the two leaders discussed the importance of working together and maintaining open and direct lines of communication, and on global and regional security issues.
They also discussed the importance of opening lines of communication between the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and his counterparts.
A senior U.S. defense official called the conversation an "important step, but not the last step," and said the U.S. military is having "working-level discussions with China on future agreements to make sure we deliver on what President Biden and President Xi agreed to in November."
"We are planning to hold bilateral defense policy coordination talks and we are trying to hold rounds of Maritime Military Consultative Agreement talks in the spring," the senior defense official said.
Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan
The defense policy coordination talks were supposed to be an annual dialogue, but China canceled them after Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
The talks are expected to resume in January, according to a senior U.S. defense official, and will be led by a deputy assistant secretary of defense on the U.S. side and a major general on the Chinese military side.
The last time the talks were held in person was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Maritime Consultative Military Agreement talks are about security at sea and involve members of the armed forces at the operational level rather than higher-ranking defence officers. A senior U.S. military official said the goal is for talks to resume in the spring of 2024.
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"It's important to reopen communication. These are the kinds of discussions we need to have to try to avoid misunderstandings or miscalculations," a senior U.S. defense official said. "Having those open channels of communication, obviously, is a key part of that."
The officials said they are not aware of any recent unsafe or unprofessional behavior by the Chinese military. The most recent incident occurred on Oct. 24, when a Chinese J-11 flew within 3 feet of a U.S. Air Force B-52 over the South China Sea.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command called the action unsafe and unprofessional, saying the J-11 approached the B-52 at excessive and uncontrolled speed, and flew low and directly in front of the U.S. aircraft, "putting both aircraft in danger of collision."
That was ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit held in San Francisco in November and officials have not been aware of any other incidents since.
"However, we continue to observe coercive behavior in other contexts," the senior U.S. official said, including "recent encounters between the People's Republic of China and the Philippines around Thomas Shoal territory, for example." The official said, "This has been a recurring topic of conversation at multiple levels in our engagements with the Chinese government."
Officials could not say whether there are plans for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to speak with a senior Chinese official or even who he would speak to while China's defense minister post remains vacant.
"The People's Republic of China has not yet appointed a new national defense minister," the senior U.S. defense official said. "Our expectation is that they'll probably announce one in March."