Senior U.S. and Chinese defense officials are signaling a renewed effort to improve communication between their militaries after years of mounting tensions and disrupted dialogue.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby met with Chinese Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu at the Pentagon on July 23, one of several recent contacts between the two governments.
“Under President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth’s leadership, we deal with our Chinese counterparts in a spirit of respect, candor, and realism,” Colby wrote the following day on X.
On Tuesday, Alvaro Smith, deputy assistant defense secretary for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, told an audience at the Chinese Embassy in Washington that communication between the two militaries is “stronger than it has been in years.”
Smith spoke at an event marking the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese army.
“Under the leadership of Secretary Hegseth, we are actively repairing a once broken military-to-military channel and making clear, steady progress,” he said, according to a transcript posted online by the Pentagon.
The United States does not seek conflict with China and wants a peaceful and respectful bilateral relationship, Smith added.
“The department has embraced a new approach to our military relationship — one built on candid, respectful, clear conversations with genuine interest in de-escalation, while continuing to advance our nation’s priorities,” he said. “This is how two powerful militaries should engage, and over the last year and a half, we made this a reality.”
Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng also welcomed the recent improvement in relations but warned that significant disagreements remain.
“The stabilizing and improving momentum in China-US relations has not come easily, and should be doubly cherished,” he said at the event, according to a transcript released by the embassy.
“We have every obligation to pursue dialogue and cooperation, and no single reason for conflict or confrontation,” Xie added.
However, he described Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China’s political system and its development rights as four “red lines” that Washington should not challenge.
The renewed military contacts follow more than a decade of deteriorating relations over China’s military buildup, cyber activities, alleged theft of American intellectual property, pressure on Taiwan and increasingly assertive operations around America’s Indo-Pacific allies.
Relations worsened after Beijing suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and imposed a national security law there the following year. Tensions were on display at a March 2021 meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, where senior U.S. and Chinese diplomats publicly rebuked one another.
The Trump administration’s tougher approach to China may have helped create room for limited military cooperation, according to Paul Buchanan, an American security analyst based in New Zealand.
“Power respects power,” he told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday.
Washington demonstrated political resolve by accepting some of the economic costs caused by trade disruptions that also harmed China’s economy, Buchanan said.
“Having demonstrated that sort of political resolve by using the trade stick, the U.S. can offer an olive branch in the form of better military-to-military cooperation,” he said.
The improving contacts do not mean the strategic rivalry is ending, Buchanan added.
“This will not change with a rapprochement between the two powers, but increased cooperation and communication can help take the edge off of the rougher margins of the bilateral military relationship,” he said.