It all sounds so nice a meet and greet for the two top military officials for two superpowers at a confab for Asian security experts. The Shangri-la Dialogue hosted every year by International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore. Sounds like it’s posh and for people with really super brains, right? Well, it’s June so Singapore would be in the upper-80’s but in the controlled climate of a luxury hotel, who cares? But, China put the kibosh on a meeting between Secretary of Defense LLoyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu. We don’t need a spotlight to tell us that these two superpowers are on the outs. Can this relationship be saved?

China is still feeling a little quarrelsome over the fact that the Trump Administration sanctioned the People’s Liberation Army General in 2018:

In 2018, the administration of former US President Donald Trump sanctioned Li and China’s Equipment Development Department – which he was in charge of at the time – for purchasing Russian weapons, including a Su-35 combat aircraft and a S-400 surface-to-air missile system.

And, of course, China is big mad that we shot down their balloon, which was over our sovereign (except for the Southern Border) nation. So they nixed the meeting. From the Financial Times:

The overture had been made for a meeting to take place at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an Asia security event hosted annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The People’s Republic of China informed the US that they have declined our early May invitation,” the Pentagon said.
The Financial Times reported this month that China had told the US there was little chance of a meeting as long as Washington maintained sanctions on Li, which had been imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 in connection with Chinese purchases of Russian fighter jets and missiles.
The Pentagon had previously informed China that the sanctions did not prohibit a meeting in Singapore, but Beijing signalled (sic) that it would be inappropriate to meet as long as they remained in place.

China is huge on the upper hand thing. It’s all about getting more face (Respect.). Bill Faries of Bloomberg News actually does a fine job of explaining the situation in this video:

General Li would not be on an equal footing with SecDef Austin because of the sanctions. This is about having more face and the upper hand. More from the Financial Times:

“This is far from the first time that the PRC has rejected invitations to communicate from the secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, or other [defence] department officials,” said a senior US defence official. “Frankly, it’s just the latest in a litany of excuses.”
The official added that, since 2021, China had declined or failed to respond to more than a dozen request for senior-level meetings in addition to multiple requests for working-level meetings.

The Chinese have been playing the Bidenites from the beginning when they ate our lunch at the first confab in Alaska. While refusing to meet with our counterpart, China opened up its Beijing People’s Liberation Army barracks to embassies and military attaches from around the world. According to the South China Morning Post:

The tour came as the US said it would not consider lifting sanctions on Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu to pave the way for a meeting with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this week.
Observers said the invitation from the PLA Ground Force indicated China’s willingness to have regular military exchanges with Western forces.
More than 50 military attaches and officers from 43 embassies took part in the tour, the ground force said on its WeChat social media account on Sunday.
Troops put on demonstrations of boxing, firearms drills and antiterror training, and showed the visitors around the officers’ dormitory.

The ground force said the tour was the first it had organised for foreign counterparts since the Covid-19 pandemic, and signalled China’s efforts to promote mutual understanding, deepen mutual trust and forge friendship with other countries under its goal of “peaceful development”.
Zhou Chenming, a researcher with the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank, said the invitation was a message to Washington.
“Beijing wants to use the resumption of military exchanges to tell Washington: don’t mix up military-to-military exchanges with politics, and don’t use ‘sanctions’ to create problems for your rival,” Zhou said.

The PLA has maintained mid-level engagement and communication with its US counterpart, but the sanctions on Li have blocked high-level communications between the two militaries since Li was promoted to defence minister in March.
Beijing has also ignored requests by US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John Aquilino and Austin to speak to or meet their Chinese counterparts, according to US military officers.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know. China has the face and the upper hand and dictates the terms of the relationship. We should send them an invoice for the costs of the missiles and jet time to take out their balloon. We should also send them an invoice for the hospital costs, funerals, lives and businesses destroyed from the Kung flu. Negotiate that, Xi and Li. If only this administration loved this country half as much as the Chinese love their country and culture.

Featured Composite: Spc. XaViera Masline/Wikimedia Commons/Cropped/Creative Commons 3.0/Inset Минобороны России (Vadim Savitsky)/Wikimedia Commons/cropped/Creative Commons 4.0