United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe held their first face-to-face meeting in Singapore on Friday, on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue security summit.
According to the Pentagon's readout of the meeting, Austin reiterated that the US "remains committed to our longstanding one-China policy." Wei and Austin discussed issues such as Taiwan, the Ukrainian conflict, North Korea's nuclear development and ballistic missiles, as well as China's recent strategic moves in the Asia-Pacific region.
Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated in recent years, with the world’s two largest economies disagreeing over many things, including Taiwan and China’s human rights policies to its military activity in the South China Sea.
