China Rebuffs Pentagon Chief

“China has rebuffed a U.S. request for a meeting between their defense chiefs on the sidelines of an annual security forum in Singapore this coming weekend, showing the limits of a tentative rapprochement between the two rival powers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The decision by China formally to inform the Pentagon shuts the door for now on a meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Li Shangfu, China’s new defense minister, which the U.S. had proposed on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.”

“China’s dismissal of the proposal also was termed an unusually blunt message.”