Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China/Chapter 6

by the United States Department of Defense

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

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• In 2022, the PLA largely denied, cancelled, and ignored recurring bilateral engagements and DoD requests for communication.
• The PLA's refusal to engage with DoD has largely continued in 2023.
• The PLA's refusal to engage in military-to-military communications with the United States, combined with the PLA's increasingly coercive and risky operational behavior, raises the risk of an operational incident or miscalculation spiraling into crisis or conflict.
• DoD is committed to reopening lines of communication with the PRC to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.
• DoD's objectives in opening lines of communication include ensuring crisis communications channels, reducing strategic and operational risk, and clarifying misperceptions.

DoD contacts and exchanges with the PRC are conducted in accordance with the statutory limitations of the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2020, as amended.

STRATEGIC CONTEXT FOR U.S.-PRC DEFENSE RELATIONSHIP

Beginning in the early 2000s, the United States approached defense engagement with the PRC as a means of enhancing PLA transparency, advancing mutual reciprocity, and imparting best practices for air and maritime operational safety. These activities sought to encourage the PRC to play a constructive and peaceful role in a free and open international system.

Despite U.S. and international efforts to encourage the PRC's rise to occur within the rules-based international order, PRC malign behavior has subsequently cast doubt on the PRC's willingness to operate in accordance with international laws, rules, and norms. As the PLA modernizes toward its goal of producing a world-class force by 2049, the PRC has increasingly turned to the PLA as an instrument of statecraft to advance its foreign policy objectives—adopting more coercive and aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region.

As the PRC pushes the PLA to engage in increasingly coercive and risky operational behavior in an effort to achieve the PRC's policy objectives in the East and South China Seas, Beijing has retreated from military-to-military communications with the United States. The ability of the two sides to now effectively communicate to preempt or manage a potential incident caused by risky PLA behavior is weak and raises the risk of escalation.

In August 2022, the PRC suspended military contacts and exchanges with the United States, claiming the cut-off was in response to the former House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan. Roughly a year on, the PRC continues to point to long-standing U.S. military activities in the Western Pacific, the United States’ Taiwan policy, and Washington’s refusal to remove sanctions on the PRC’s newly-appointed Minister of National Defense, General Li Shangfu, for creating a “negative atmosphere” for talks. The PRC’s long track record of cancelling military-to-military lines of communication in response to perceived offenses suggests the PRC views military channels of communication as a tool to punish or reward the United States for its perceived behavior, versus being inherently valuable to maintaining peace and stability.

High-Level Contacts and Exchanges. High-level exchanges between the U.S. and PRC—such as between the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the PRC Minister of National Defense—are an important way to exchange views on the bilateral defense relationship and the international security environment. In the past, the PRC was willing to responsibly engage in high-level dialogue to ensure mutual understanding on a range of policy and operational issues. While DoD continues to seek open lines of communication with the PLA at multiple levels in both operator and policy channels, the PRC now views executing military-to-military communications as a tool to either reward or punish U.S. behavior based on U.S. adherence and respect for PRC core interests.

• Executed. In 2022, the Secretary of Defense engaged with then-PRC Minister of National Defense, General Wei Fenghe, three times to discuss regional security, bilateral defense relations, and issues of common concern. They met once in June on the sidelines of the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, and once in November on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministerial Meeting + (ADMM+) in Cambodia. The Secretary also held one Defense Telephone Link (DLT) call with General Wei in April 2022 to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) held one DTL with then-PRC Chairman of the Joint Staff Department (JSD) in July to discuss operational issues.

• Refused, Cancelled, or Ignored. In 2022, the PLA declined, cancelled, or ignored the majority of senior-level contacts. In July, the PLA cancelled a planned DTL call about operational issues between INDOPACOM Commander and the PLA Southern Theater Command (STC) commander. In August, the PLA refused a CJCS DTL call request to the Chairman of the JSD. In August, the PLA refused a Secretary of Defense DTL call request to the PRC Minister of National Defense. In December, the PLA again refused a CJCS DTL call request to the Chairman of the JSD.

Recurring Exchanges. Recurring exchanges serve as regularized mechanisms for dialogue to advance priorities related to crisis prevention and management and reduce of operational risk.

• Executed. None.

• Refused, Cancelled, or Ignored. In 2020, the PLA indefinitely postponed the Asia-Pacific Security Dialogue (APSD), an Assistant Secretary of Defense-level policy dialogue. The APSD did not take place in 2021 or 2022. In August, the PRC cancelled the Defense Policy Coordination Talks (DPCT), an annual Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) level policy dialogue. In August, the PRC also cancelled all Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) talks, an operational safety dialogue between U.S. INDOPACOM and PLA naval and air forces, in violation of the U.S-PRC Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing the MMCA. Until 2020, the U.S. and PRC have met regularly since 1998 for MMCA dialogue to strengthen military maritime safety, improve operational safety in the air and sea, and reduce risk between the two militaries. The PLA also declined to hold a Crisis Communications Working Group (CCWG) meeting, a working-level policy dialogue established in 2020 to advance crisis prevention and management mechanisms between DoD and the PLA.

Confidence Building Measures and Academic Exchanges. Confidence Building Measure engagements focus on employing mechanisms for risk reduction, briefing significant policy documents, reducing misunderstanding or misperceptions, POW/MIA accounting, and communication to promote international rules and norms. Similarly, academic exchanges focus on building mutual understanding.

• Executed. In September, the PRC Defense Attaché provided a briefing to the DASD for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia on the PRC’s 2022 Taiwan white paper “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era.” DoD requested the briefing, consistent with the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Department of Defense and the PRC Ministry of National Defense on Notification of Major Military Activities Confidence Building Measures Mechanism, to reduce misperceptions about PRC intentions for “reunification.” Similarly, DoD provided a briefing to the PRC Defense Attaché on the 2022 annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC” and the 2022 National Defense Strategy to share DoD assessments of PRC security developments and discuss areas of perceived misperception. DoD offered these briefings to the PRC to clarify U.S. strategic intent and provide a platform to clarify misperceptions.

• Refused, Cancelled, or Ignored. Since 2019, the PRC has not offered or requested briefings to DoD on security related policy developments under the 2014 MOU between the U.S. Department of Defense and the PRC Ministry of National Defense on Notification of Major Military Activities Confidence Building Measures Mechanism. There were no exchanges or contacts in 2022 between the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) and the PLA.

U.S.-PRC DEFENSE CONTACTS AND EXCHANGES IN 2023

The PRC’s refusal to engage in military-to-military communication only sharpened in 2023.

• Executed. The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff each sent congratulatory letters to the newly-appointed PRC Minister of National Defense, Li Shangfu, and Chairman of the Joint Staff Department, General Liu Zhenli. The United States, as the chair of the dialogue among the five Nuclear Weapons States, organized a working-level experts meeting on June 13-14 in Cairo, which included officials from the U.S. Department of Defense and PRC Ministry of National Defense.

• Refused, Cancelled, or Ignored. As of June 2023, the PRC declined two SECDEF DTL call requests to General Wei Fenghe. The PRC ignored INDOPACOM Commander DTL call requests to the PLA STC, Northern Theater Command (NTC), and Eastern Theater Command (ETC) commanders. The PRC similarly ignored DoD requests to hold recurring exchanges including DPCTs, MMCA talks, and CCWG. The PRC defense attaché in the United States refused multiple invitations to engage with the DASD for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia.

Of note, in April 2023, the PLA requested U.S. assistance in evacuation of PRC diplomats from Khartoum, Sudan amidst ongoing fighting. In response, DoD provided evacuation routes from Khartoum to the Port of Sudan to the PRC and multiple other countries that had requested U.S. assistance.