Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu refuses to meet US counterpart at forum in Singapore

China denied the US a request to have Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meet with Chinese Defense Secretary Li Shangfu at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore scheduled for June 2-4. The reason was that the administration of US President Joe Biden upheld US sanctions against Lee, imposed under Donald Trump due to the purchase of Russian weapons. Beijing’s decision was first reported by the Financial Times (FT) and The Wall Street Journal, citing a Pentagon report.

Then this information was de facto confirmed at a briefing on May 30 by the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, without resorting to specifics. According to her, Washington is “well aware” of the reasons for the lack of ties between the ministers. “The American side must <...> immediately correct their erroneous actions,” Mao explained Beijing’s position.

The US authorities made it clear to the Chinese that the sanctions were not an obstacle to the meeting of defense ministers in Singapore, but the Chinese side had a different opinion. At the same time, on May 29, the PRC Ministry of Defense announced that Li would make a report on China’s New Security Initiatives at the aforementioned international forum, and also hold talks with representatives of the government and defense department of Singapore and other heads of delegations of countries participating in the forum.

“This is far from the first time that the PRC has turned down invitations to communicate from the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or other Defense Department officials,” said a senior Pentagon official quoted by the FT. He added that Beijing is only using the sanctions imposed on Li as a pretext, and since 2021, China has rejected or ignored more than 12 requests for high-level meetings, not counting requests for meetings at the working level. The Pentagon assures that they believe in “open communication so that competition does not escalate into conflict.”

Li, 65, was confirmed as China’s new defense minister and member of the State Council on March 12 at a session of the National People’s Congress. As early as September 2018, he was sanctioned by the United States under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) as head of the Arms Development Administration of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China for purchasing Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia. At that time, Washington emphasized that Russia was the ultimate goal of such sanctions. The restrictions included the freezing of all assets in the United States, a ban on financial transactions and the denial of export licenses to the PRC, and Li was personally banned from entering the United States.

The situation in interstate relations between the United States and China, and as a result with the meetings of their leaders, became more complicated in early 2023 due to the situation with a Chinese balloon that was found in the sky over the United States. On February 3, the State Department announced that the visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Beijing, which was planned after talks in the fall of 2022 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, was postponed. However, then on February 18, Blinken and the head of the foreign affairs office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Wang Yi, met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

On May 10 and 11, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Wang Yi in Vienna for more than eight hours in total. On May 25, the first meeting of cabinet members of the governments of the two countries in a long time took place in Washington – Minister of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao discussed issues of trade relations and areas of potential cooperation. The Chinese minister is known to have expressed serious concern about US export bans.

At the same time, on March 20, White House strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said that the head of the White House really wants to talk with the leader of China. On May 17, Biden said that “sooner or later” he will meet with Xi.

The meeting between the US and Chinese defense ministers could be one of those where the parties agree on the “rules of the game”, but the Chinese decided in principle to point to the current sanctions against Li, which were introduced on a far-fetched pretext due to regular contracts for the supply of Russian weapons, says Vasily Kashin, director of the Central Institute of Chemistry of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. At the same time, the Chinese do not refuse such meetings in principle, as evidenced by other negotiations between representatives of Washington and Beijing, the expert emphasizes. In his opinion, the meeting between Lee and Austin was more in the interests of the United States than China, since the Americans want to continue their line of increasing cooperation with Taiwan and increasing activity in Asia, but at the same time having clear agreements with China behind them in order to avoid unpredictable escalation. For this purpose, among other things, it is necessary to have open lines between the military so that they can quickly notify each other and resolve conflict situations, for example, at sea, says Kashin. The Chinese are not eager to simplify the task of the United States, while seeking the removal of sanctions from the Minister of Defense, the expert concludes.