Beijing and Washington may be set to revive dormant military communication channels but it is just a first step and the two sides are still some way from genuine trust, an observer has cautioned.
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The assessment followed US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement on social media on Sunday that the two countries had “agreed that we should set up military-to-military channels to deconflict and deescalate any problems that arise”.
Hegseth met his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun on the sidelines of the Asean Defence Ministers Meeting Plus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Friday in the first face-to-face meeting between the defence ministers of China and the United States under the second Trump administration. The Pentagon chief said he spoke with Dong again on Saturday.
China, Japan, South Korea meet Asean bloc
China, Japan, South Korea meet Asean bloc
They agreed that “peace, stability and good relations are the best path for our two great and strong countries”, the US defence secretary said, adding that more meetings would come soon.
The agreement comes in the wake of a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday, their first in-person discussion since Trump’s return to the White House in January.
The talks between the presidents in the South Korean city of Busan “set the tone for everlasting peace and success for the US and China”, and “the relationship between the United States and China has never been better”, Hegseth said in his social media post, echoing Trump.
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An analyst cautioned, however, that restoring contact was only an initial step, and it was not certain that the two sides could build military trust amid fraught political and economic ties.
