WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (AP): Within hours of an Air Force F-22 downing a giant Chinese balloon that had crossed the United States, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Chinese counterpart via a special crisis line, aiming for a quick general-to-general talk that could explain things and ease tensions.
But Austin’s effort on Saturday fell flat, when Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe declined to get on the line, the Pentagon says.
China’s Defence Ministry says it refused the call from Austin after the balloon was shot down because the US had “not created the proper atmosphere” for dialogue and exchange. The US action had “seriously violated international norms and set a pernicious precedent,” a ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying in a statement issued on late Thursday.
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It’s been an experience that’s frustrated US commanders for decades, when it comes to getting their Chinese counterparts on a phone or video line as some flaring crisis is sending tensions between the two nations climbing.
From Americans’ perspective, the lack of the kind of reliable crisis communications that helped get the US and Soviet Union through the Cold War without an armed nuclear exchange is raising the dangers of the US-China relationship now, at a time when China’s military strength is growing and tensions with the US are on the rise.
Without that ability for generals in opposing capitals to clear things up in a hurry, Americans worry that misunderstandings, false reports or accidental collisions could cause a minor confrontation to spiral into greater hostilities.
And it’s not about any technical shortfall with the communication equipment, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of Indo-Pacific studies at the German Marshall Fund think tank. The issue is a fundamental disparity in the way China and the US view the value and purpose of military-to-military hotlines.
US military leaders’ faith in Washington-to-Beijing hotlines as a way to defuse flare-ups with China’s military has been butting up against a sharply different take — a Chinese political system that runs on slow deliberative consultation by political leaders and makes no room for individually directed, real-time talk between rival generals. And Chinese leaders are suspicious of the whole US notion of a hotline. They see it as an American channel for talking their way out of blowback for a US provocation.
“That’s really dangerous,” Assistant Secretary for Defence Ely Ratner said on Thursday of the difficulty of military-to-military crisis communications with China, when Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley pressed him about China’s latest rebuff on Beijing’s and Washington’s hotline setup.
US generals are persisting in their efforts to open more lines of communication with Chinese counterparts, the defense official said, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “And unfortunately, to date, the PLA is not answering that call,” Ratner said, referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Ratner accused China of using vital channels of communication simply as a blunter messaging tool, shutting them down or opening them up again to underscore China’s displeasure or pleasure.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning referred questions about Wei’s refusal to take Austin’s call to the Defence Ministry,
China’s resistance to military hotlines as tensions increase puts more urgency on efforts by President Joe Biden and his top civilian diplomats and security aides to build up their own communication channels with President Xi Jinping and other top Chinese political officials, for situations where military hotlines may go unanswered, US officials and China experts say.
Both US and Chinese militaries are building up for a possible confrontation over US-backed self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. The next flare-up seems only a matter of time. It could happen with an expected event, such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s promised visit to Taiwan, or something unexpected, like the 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter and a US Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea. Without commanders talking in real-time, Americans and Chinese would have one less way of averting greater conflict.
