The meeting in Singapore between Lloyd Austin and Dong Jun marks the first substantive face-to-face talks between the two nations in 18 months.
The defense chiefs of the United States and China have held rare direct talks in Singapore, offering hope that greater military dialogue could help prevent disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea from spiraling out of control.
Lloyd Austin and Dong Jun met early Friday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue for their first substantive face-to-face discussion in 18 months.
According to officials, talks began at the luxury hotel hosting the security forum. The meeting followed a video conference in April.
Defense chiefs and officials from around the world attend the annual forum that in recent years has become a barometer of US-China relations.
This year's edition comes a week after China held military exercises around Taiwan and warned of a US-backed war over the island following the inauguration of President William Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing has described as a “dangerous separatist.”
The dispute over democratic Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, tops the list of disagreements between the rivals.
Beijing is furious over Washington's deepening defense ties in the Asia Pacific, particularly with the Philippines, and its regular deployment of warships and fighter jets to the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
In recent weeks, the Philippines hosted the largest joint military exercise ever held with the United States. On Thursday, China's Defense Ministry strongly condemned the deployment of a US intermediate-range missile system in the northern Philippines during military exercises in April, saying it “brought enormous war risks to the region.”
China sees the activities as part of a decades-long U.S. effort to contain it.
Relieve friction
President Joe Biden's administration and China have been stepping up communication to ease friction between the nuclear-armed rivals, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing and Shanghai last month.
A key focus has been the resumption of military-to-military dialogue.
China canceled military communications with the United States in 2022 in response to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing were further fueled during 2023 over issues such as an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over US airspace, a meeting between then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and Pelosi's successor Kevin McCarthy, and US military aid to Taipei.
After a summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Biden in November last year, the two sides agreed to restart high-level military talks.
That includes a communications channel between the head of the US Asia Pacific Command and Chinese commanders responsible for military operations near Taiwan, Japan and in the South China Sea.
Chinese and US forces have had a series of close encounters in the disputed waterway that China claims almost entirely.
Austin warned before Biden and Xi agreed to resume military-to-military dialogue that accidents have the potential to spiral out of control, especially in the absence of open lines of communication between US and Chinese forces.
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