China should set up US communication channels like it offered other countries, top Biden aide says

US President Joe Biden’s senior-most official on Asia policy called on Beijing to establish the same kind of communication channels with Washington that it has worked recently to set up with some of its neighbours.

The comments on Wednesday by Kurt Campbell, the White House’s national security coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, were the latest in a series of responses to a breakdown in communications between the Pentagon and senior Chinese defence officials that Campbell and other US officials warned could spark a military conflict.

“We are still relatively early in the process of this round of re-engagement in terms of dialogue and diplomacy between [the United] States and China, and it’s uncertain what trajectory it will take, but I can assure you … we will conduct our diplomacy with China in the closest possible consultation with allies and partners,” Campbell said.

“We believe that the dominant frame of US-China relations is indeed competitive and that will likely remain the case going forward,” he noted during a discussion at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.