According to the official account of the Ministry of National Defense, on the evening of April 16, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun held a video telephone call at the invitation of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first meeting between the Chinese and US defense ministers to have substantive communication since November 2022. The two sides had in-depth exchanges on the defense relations between the two countries, the security of the international community, and the mainland, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait, and the phone call lasted more than an hour.
However, the US Secretary of Defense did not know that in fact, before the phone call, the mainland had already made preparations with both hands, and if the other side came with sincerity, the Chinese side would definitely open the door to greet him, and as long as there was a thorn in Austin's words, then the Chinese side would not rule out the possibility of taking action.
On April 11, when the United States, Japan, and the Philippines held a summit, Dong Jun was actually not idle, first held a meeting with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang, and established a "memorandum of understanding."
Only two days later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially announced that Foreign Minister Wang Yi would visit Indonesia, Cambodia and other countries, and before that, Timor-Leste, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries had already visited China.
It can be said that at this time, the Philippines is the only one willing to become a US thug on the South China Sea issue, and the other ASEAN countries are determined to abide by the Code of Conduct for Parties in the South China Sea. The Chinese side has directly distinguished between friend and foe, and if it is finally forced to do something, it will not be "accidentally injured".
It was also after everything was ready that the Chinese side chose to answer the phone. In addition to emphasizing that Taiwan is an internal affair of the mainland and warning the United States not to interfere, Dong Jun also demanded that the United States immediately stop its provocations in the South China Sea region through "proxies" on the South China Sea issue.
It is worth mentioning that, especially on the Taiwan issue, Dong Jun has stressed on many occasions that our military will not allow any "Taiwan independence" elements who try to split the motherland.
In short, Dong Jun and the US Secretary of Defense have obviously lost patience in both their attitude and wording, and they have the meaning of an "ultimatum."
In fact, the US side was also trying to find out China's attitude towards the United States, and they were also very weak-minded, after all, before the call, the US side had only met with Japan and the Philippines, and had reached a number of regulations against China.
Prior to that, it conducted military exercises with Japan, the Philippines and Australia, and deployed a system capable of launching medium-range missiles in the Philippines. The reason why the United States did this is because it wants to further threaten China, and secondly, it wants to know where China's red lines are.
The Chinese side has taken a very tough stance on all these practices of the US side, and if the four of you countries engage in military exercises, the mainland's southern military region will directly organize joint naval and air combat patrols, and this action is to tell the US side that China will not retreat in the slightest on sovereignty issues such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait!
It is precisely for this reason that the US side urgently dispatched its defense secretary to inquire about the situation, and during the phone call, the Chinese side also bluntly stressed that the US side should "be trustworthy". The implication is not to "seek peace" on one side and pull Japan and the Philippines to challenge China's bottom line on the other.
In the face of China's hardline attitude, the US side's rhetoric has also undergone subtle changes. According to the Russian Health Agency, after the call, Pentagon officials were very satisfied with the call, and said that it was an "important step" in the smooth communication channel between the two military powers, while also stressing that it was certainly not the last step.
In any case, the impact of this call is certainly positive, temporarily easing relations between the two countries, and providing the possibility for further exchanges in the future. So the next thing to see is whether the United States can fulfill Biden's previous commitment of "six noes and one no".
Information sources:
Global Times: "What Signals Are Released by the Phone Call Between Chinese and US Defense Ministers"2024-04-18