Commentary
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has repeatedly requested, since Biden’s presidency, a meeting with China’s top military officer, only to be rebuffed, according to information revealed by U.S. defense officials in a May 21 Financial Times report. Beijing’s snub of Mr. Austin is being interpreted by some, optimistically, as a petty bureaucratic rivalry. However, the dispute indicates dangerously self-defeating behavior on the part of both Beijing and Washington D.C., just as military tensions are increasing between the United States and allies on one side, and China and its allies, on the other.
