China has turned down a phone call, proposed by the Pentagon, between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe. A Pentagon spokesman told the Voice of America (VOA) that the two had not talked since November, when a discussion was held on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus.
Otherwise, VOA notes that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China in a few weeks. State Department spokesman Ned Price told VOA last week that Blinken’s talks with senior Chinese officials would include “areas that are predicated by competition, areas where relations between our two countries have the potential to be even adversarial and ways we can ensure responsible management of those areas, but also areas in which we can seek and even deepen collaboration.”
