Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun declined to meet with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin due to the recent U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, China’s MND said Thursday.
Austin reached out to meet with his Chinese counterpart while at the Association of South East Asian Defense Ministers meeting and ASEAN defense ministers’ meeting-plus summits held Wednesday through Thursday in Vientiane, Laos. During a Wednesday press conference, Austin said he regretted Dong’s refusal to meet.
“The PRC’s decision is a setback for the whole region. As I’ve said consistently, the right time to meet is any time,” Austin said, according to a Pentagon transcript.
Austin downplayed that the refusal to meet would lead to a breakdown in future communications between the two sides.
“Now, I don’t think that it has any sort of implications for the future. I just think that it’s something that they chose to do at this point in time and only they can explain why they chose to not take advantage of a good opportunity,” Austin said.
Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Snr. Col. Wu Qian said in a release that the U.S. could not damage China’s core interests on the Taiwan issue while conducting exchanges with the Chinese military as if nothing had happened.
“The top priority is that the U.S. side should immediately correct its mistakes, earnestly respect China’s core interests, and strive to create favorable conditions for high-level exchanges between the two militaries,” Wu said in the release.
On Oct. 25, the Pentagon announced the proposed sale of AN/TPS-77 and AN/TPS-78 radars, worth $828 million, and a $1.16 billion proposed sale of three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile units and related equipment. China’s Ministry of National Defense denounced the sale on Oct. 31.
“The U.S. arms sales to China’s Taiwan region severely violate the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués. This move seriously undermines China’s sovereignty and security interests, disrupts China-U.S. relations, undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends very wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces. We strongly condemn and firmly oppose it and have lodged solemn representations to the US side,” spokesperson Snr. Col. Zhang Xiaogang said.
During Wednesday’s briefing, Austin announced that the U.S. and ASEAN would hold the second ASEAN-US Maritime Exercise, or AUMX, next year, which ASEAN member states approved during the ADMM plenary on Wednesday. The U.S. held its inaugural AUMX in 2019. Three other countries have held naval drills with ASEAN: China in 2018, Russia in 2021 and India in 2023.
On Thursday, Austin participated in a joint meeting on the sidelines of the summit with Australian Minister for Defense Industry Pat Conroy, Japanese Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro and Republic of Korea Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun.
“The Ministers and Secretaries emphasized the importance of close multilateral cooperation in support of regional security and stability, and underscored the importance of ASEAN centrality and unity and ASEAN-led regional architecture. The leaders highlighted the progress made in strengthening their defense cooperation and reaffirmed their commitment to working together moving forward,” reads a Pentagon readout.
Following the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ meeting plenary on Wednesday, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen cautioned Myanmar for its refusal to agree to several items during the meeting.
“Myanmar’s behaviour risks undermining the ASEAN Centrality that we have painstakingly built over the past two decades of defence cooperation,” adding that it hurts the ASEAN defense ministers’ meeting’s credibility, according to a Singapore Ministry of Defense release. The Singapore Defense Minister urged Myanmar “not to use ASEAN for its own politics of retaliation and not to put the ADMM in a difficult position for its own purposes,” reads to the release.
None of the countries nor the ministers involved have disclosed the items that Myanmar refused to approve. ASEAN’s policy of consensus among its members means that any action must have the unanimous approval of all members. USNI understands that Myanmar’s refusal was on the matter of endorsing Canada, France and the United Kingdom’s membership in the ADMM-plus grouping.
The ADMM-plus is a platform for ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners – Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States (collectively referred to as the “Plus Countries”) – to strengthen security and defense cooperation. While the ADMM decides on membership in the Plus group, both Russia and China are opposed to additional western nations joining ADMM-plus, seeing the entry of Canada, France and the U.K. as diluting their voices in the group.
Activities within the ADMM-plus groupings, which has seven expert working groups focused on advancing cooperation in specific defense and security areas, have been complicated by the fact that several countries in the group oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Myanmar’s ongoing human rights violations while suppressing opposition to the ruling junta. Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand and the U.S. did not participate in that EWG’s activities in 2023, when Russia and Myanmar served as joint chairs of the EWG on counter-terrorism.
