Bloomberg (November 19), quoting official sources, said that officials in Washington and Beijing have agreed to open high-level channels of communication between their militaries. It added that during a 3 1/2-hour virtual summit with President Joe Biden on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to support such channels between the U.S. military and top officials from the People’s Liberation Army, including Xu Qiliang, Vice Chairman of the country’s powerful Central Military Commission. The White House is now defining a strategy on how to approach these engagements, including in the areas of cybersecurity, space and nuclear weapons, as well as testing and deployment issues of concern to the U.S., the person said. It said, quoting sources, that the discussions won’t be formal arms control negotiations of the kind that the U.S. previously held with the Soviet Union and Russia and the exact format for the forthcoming military-to-military talks is still to be determined. The agreement is a further sign of thawing ties between the world’s two largest economies and comes after months of escalating tensions, fueled most recently by China’s test of a hypersonic weapon and a warning from Pentagon intelligence officials that China’s nuclear arsenal was growing more quickly than expected. Pentagon officials pointed to a briefing on November 16, when Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration is seeking “ways that we can cooperate with China on climate, for example” and “we’d like nothing more than to be able to deter any conflict or miscalculation.” A White House spokesman had no immediate comment, and the Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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