The People’s Republic of China has declined an invitation from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to meet with his counterpart in Singapore while an annual global security conference is under way.
“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, as reported first by the Wall Street Journal. “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.”
Chinese Embassy Spokesman Liu Pengyu told the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. was “seeking to suppress China through all possible means and continue imposing sanctions on Chinese officials, institutions and companies.”
In 2017, then-Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska had all-but sealed a deal with the government of China and its government-owned banks and financial institutions to help Alaska build a gasline, from which the majority of natural gas from Alaska would be sold to the Chinese.
