| | | Re this Alaska meeting Message 33251179 , where Team Blinken chose to lecture as opposed to dialogue, turns out to have been a missed opportunity
The source said China had hoped to exchange intelligence about Afghanistan when Wang and China’s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Alaska in March because Beijing had realised how complicated and risky the situation would become once the US withdrew its troops. “If the US and China started talks about Afghanistan risk assessment, it would not have done so much damage to both countries. China evacuated almost all their nationals three months ago,” the source said. scmp.com
China and US militaries resume high-level talks with Afghan crisis top of the agenda
- A Chinese source says Beijing wanted to discuss its concerns about Afghanistan in Alaska in March but the US ‘ignored’ it
- Last week’s talks between senior military officials were the first of their kind since Joe Biden took office in January
A Chinese military source has confirmed that the Chinese and US militaries resumed high-level talks last week for the first time since President Joe Biden took office in January.
A source close to the People’s Liberation Army told The South China Morning Post on Saturday that the Afghanistan crisis was the most urgent issue discussed in last week’s video conference between Major General Huang Xueping, deputy director for the People’s Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation, and his Pentagon counterpart, Michael Chase.
Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, also discussed ways to manage risk between the two countries, according to a report from Reuters that cited an anonymous US official.
“[They] utilised the US-PRC Defence Telephone Link to conduct a secure video conference,” the US official told Reuters. “Both sides agreed on the importance of maintaining open channels of communication between the two militaries.”
The Chinese source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said: “The Afghanistan crisis is the one of the most urgent issues of risk management that needs to be discussed … Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi raised this issue in the Alaska talks [earlier this year], but his American counterpart ignored it.
“The Chinese military has maintained a middle-level military-to-military communication channel via the defence attaché in the US embassy in Beijing, and [last week’s call] is the first time senior officers resumed talks.”
The source said China had hoped to exchange intelligence about Afghanistan when Wang and China’s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Alaska in March because Beijing had realised how complicated and risky the situation would become once the US withdrew its troops.
“If the US and China started talks about Afghanistan risk assessment, it would not have done so much damage to both countries. China evacuated almost all their nationals three months ago,” the source said.
“But Chinese civilian enterprises couldn’t move out their investments there as the situation in Afghanistan became worse day after day.”
China, Russia agree to work together to combat Afghanistan security risks
25 Aug 2021
On Thursday, two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport
in an attempt to flee the Taliban. The attacks killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US troops.
“What China is concerned about is that the extremist forces, especially the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, will expand their power and influence amid the chaos in Afghanistan, which needs China, the US and other countries to work together to prevent it from happening,” the source said.
China has accused the East Turkestan Islamic Movement of being behind a series of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang .
Compared with the crisis in Afghanistan, the Chinese source said the South China Sea issue had become less pressing because both sides have already exchanged their views on a proposed code of conduct and risk management in the region.
But tensions persist in the region.
On Friday, the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd and a Coast Guard national security cutter crossed through the Taiwan Strait, in what the US Pacific Fleet described as a routine operation.
On Saturday, China accused the United States of posing a security threat in the region.
“The frequent provocative moves [the passage of American vessels] are of a very bad nature and show the US is the biggest destroyer of peace and stability and the biggest maker of security risks across the Taiwan Strait”, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said.
He said the Eastern Theatre troops had tracked the American warship and were ready to respond to all threats and provocations and would defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The defence ministry said that on the same day the Eastern Theatre Troop’s “combat warships, bombers, and fighter jets staged a drill on patrolling and sudden attack on the sea in the East Sea”.
It said the operation was meant to enhance the capability of integrated operations to defend national security in the region.
This is the eighth time this year that US warships have sailed through the strait, according to the Taipei-based Central News Agency.
Taiwan’s defence ministry confirmed the US passage, saying the situation in the seas and airspace around the island remained “normal”.
The US has put countering China at the heart of its national security policy for years and Biden’s administration has described the rivalry with Beijing as “the biggest geopolitical test” of the century.
Taliban, US and allies condemn Kabul airport attack as end of Afghanistan evacuation nears
Relations between China and the United States have grown increasingly tense, with the world’s two largest economies clashing over everything from Taiwan and Beijing’s human rights record in Hong Kong and Xinjiang , as well as its military activity in the South China Sea.
Despite the tensions and heated rhetoric, the Pentagon has reportedly sought to open lines of communication and made several attempts to set up high-level military talks to mitigate potential flare-ups only to be rebuffed by Beijing.
Earlier reports said the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin asked to talk to the vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, General Xu Qiliang, not Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, who is his counterpart according to diplomatic protocol. |
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