Top US, Chinese Defense Officials Haven’t Spoken in Three Months
- US has contact with China at lower levels, Pentagon says
- Two sides have struggled to keep up communications amid strain
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The top US and Chinese defense officials haven’t spoken since November, the Pentagon said Tuesday, a sign of how recent strains over Taiwan and an alleged spy balloon have fractured communications between the world’s two most powerful armed forces.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last spoke to his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, on the margins of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations event in Cambodia on Nov. 22, according to Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman.