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


Source: news.com.au news.com.au

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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...