The White House Values It Is Important For The US To Maintain Military Communications With China To Avoid Escalation

JAKARTA - The United States believes it is important to maintain military communication channels with China to ensure stability, said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

"We have said many times, that we need to have military communication channels in place to avoid escalation, to avoid surprise, to avoid mistakes and it is very unfortunate that the Chinese Ministry of Defense has refused to take the call from the US Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin)," Sullivan said in a statement in an interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC News, Sunday, as quoted by Sputnik News February 27.

Sullivan said high-level contact was being maintained with China while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with the director of China's Central Office of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, at the Munich Security Conference last weekend.

"So, this doesn't mean that all lines of communication are down - shut down, rather, we are not having the military-to-military exchanges that we think are necessary to ensure stability," Sullivan said.

Earlier this week, Minister Austin told CNN he had not spoken to his Chinese counterpart in several months, hoping Wei Fenghe would schedule a call.

In early February, Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said China had refused a US request to hold a phone call between Secretary Austin and Secretary Wei after the US military downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in US airspace.

China maintains that civilian aircraft is carrying out scientific research.

Two weeks ago, President Joe Biden said Thursday he hoped to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping about what the United States says was a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by a US fighter jet earlier this month.

"We are not looking for a new cold war," President Biden said, citing Reuters.

"I look forward to talking to President Xi, I hope we will sort this out, but I make no apologies for taking down the balloon," President Biden said in response to complaints from Beijing.

After his speech, he told NBC News: "I think the last thing President Xi wants is to fundamentally damage relations with the United States and with me."