by Kristina Wong at Breitbart
The rejection comes despite a “weekslong effort” by the U.S. to secure a meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the annual conference, which included a letter from Austin to Li, according to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
China has rebuffed a U.S. request for a meeting between their defense chiefs on the sidelines of a security forum in Singapore this weekend, the Pentagon said, showing the limits of a tentative rapprochement between the two rival powers.@nancyayoussefhttps://t.co/HueqVCErNM
— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) May 30, 2023
“Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore this week,” Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said in a statement. “The Department believes strongly in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.”
The Chinese Embassy Spokesman Liu Pengyu told the WSJ that the U.S. was “seeking to suppress China through all possible means and continue imposing sanctions on Chinese officials, institutions and companies.”
In this handout photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Col. Gen. Vladimir Zarudnitsky, left, escorts China’s Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu during a visit to Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Russia, Monday, April 17, 2023. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
“Is there any sincerity in and significance of any communication like this?” he added.
While Austin was rebuffed,…
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