U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged China to avoid ¡°destabilizing actions¡± toward Taiwan in his first face-to-face meeting with Defense Minister Wei Fenghe since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi¡¯s visit to Taipei in August.
In talks Tuesday in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the Pentagon chief also called for the two sides to maintain open lines of communication and warned of ¡°increasingly dangerous behavior¡± by Chinese military aircraft in the Indo-Pacific region, according to a statement and briefing by U.S. officials after the meeting ended.
Chinese officials called the roughly 90-minute meeting positive and said they agreed on the need to strengthen crisis management, but put the blame squarely on the U.S. for deteriorating ties between the world¡¯s two biggest economies.
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