US says talks with China ‘essential’ to curb chance of conflict

Dialogue between the United States and China is “essential” to avoiding miscalculations that could lead to conflict, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday, after Beijing rejected a formal meeting between him and his Chinese counterpart. Austin and Li Shangfu shook hands and briefly spoke for the first time at the opening dinner of the Shangri-La Dialogue defence summit in Singapore the night before, but the interaction fell short of the Pentagon’s hopes for a more substantive exchange. The US defence chief is on a tour of Asia that previously took him to Japan and will also include a visit…