US-China to resume military-to-military dialogue in 'coming months' — US defense chief

SINGAPORE, Singapore — The United States and China will resume military-to-military communications "in the coming months", US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday, as Beijing hailed the "stabilizing" security relations between the countries.

Austin met with his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in the first substantive face-to-face talks between the two defence chiefs in 18 months.

Dong and Austin met for over an hour at the luxury hotel hosting the security forum that is attended by defence officials from around the world and in recent years has become a barometer of US-China relations.

Austin said telephone conversations between US and Chinese military commanders would resume "in the coming months", according to a readout released by the Pentagon.

He also welcomed plans for a "crisis-communications working group" with China by the end of the year, the statement said.

Describing the talks as "positive", Chinese defence spokesman Wu Qian told reporters that military-to-military relations were "currently stopping their decline and stabilising".

But Wu cautioned that it was not possible for Beijing and Washington to solve all bilateral problems in one meeting, highlighting their thorniest dispute over Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.

This year's Shangri-La Dialogue comes a week after China held military drills around self-ruled Taiwan and warned of war over the US-backed island following the inauguration of President Lai Ching-te, who Beijing has described as a "dangerous separatist".

"The Taiwan issue is purely China's internal affairs, external forces have no right to interfere, and the United States' actions seriously violate the one China principle," Wu said, referring to Washington's decision to congratulate Lai and send a delegation to the ceremony.

Austin said China's military exercises were "provocative" and insisted it should not use Taipei's "political transition... as a pretext for coercive measures."

US President Joe Biden's administration and China have been stepping up communication to ease friction between the nuclear-armed rivals, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken