U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis held high-profile talks with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday, as the United States seeks to forge to more resilient military ties that can withstand mounting pressure between the world’s two largest economies, Reuters reports.
Mattis saw first hand last month how growing Sino-U.S. friction can undermine military contacts when Beijing up-ended plans for him to travel to China in October to meet Defense Minister Wei Fenghe. It was apparent retaliation over U.S. sanctions.
Mattis and Wei made no remarks as the two shook hands at the start of their talks in Singapore, which took place on the sidelines of a gathering of Asian defense ministers.
Randall Schriver, a U.S. assistant secretary of defense who helps guide Pentagon policy in Asia, said making military-to-military ties with China less brittle would be crucial to helping reduce the chances of a devastating conflict.
“Two nuclear-armed powers with regional, if not global, interests - we need to make sure that when we step on one another’s toes, it doesn’t escalate into something that would be catastrophic,” Schriver told reporters traveling with Mattis.
Schriver said he believed that sentiment was shared by China’s military, noting that it recently requested Thursday’s talks in Singapore after Beijing decided against a planned Mattis-Wei meeting in China.