China and US militaries resume high-level talks with Afghan crisis top of the agenda
- A Chinese source says Beijing wanted to discuss its concerns about Afghanistan in Alaska in March but the US ‘ignored’ it
- Last week’s talks between senior military officials were the first of their kind since Joe Biden took office in January
Huang and Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, also discussed ways to manage risk between the two countries, according to a report from Reuters that cited an anonymous US official.
“[They] utilised the US-PRC Defence Telephone Link to conduct a secure video conference,” the US official told Reuters. “Both sides agreed on the importance of maintaining open channels of communication between the two militaries.”
The Chinese source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said: “The Afghanistan crisis is the one of the most urgent issues of risk management that needs to be discussed … Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi raised this issue in the Alaska talks [earlier this year], but his American counterpart ignored it.