Top US and Chinese military officers resume communication; Pentagon credits Biden-Xi meeting

In the first sign that the U.S. and China are restoring long frozen military contacts, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke Thursday with his Chinese counterpart, in the first such conversation between the two nations' top leaders in uniform since July 2022.

Brown spoke via video-conference with Gen. Liu Zhenli of the People's Liberation Army's joint staff department, according to a statement released by Brown's office.

The men discussed a variety of issues and maintaining lines of communication was a major topic given the lack of contacts over the last year and a half, during which the number of unsafe and unprofessional intercepts carried out by Chinese aircraft over the South China Sea increased significantly, the Pentagon has said.

Brown "discussed the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations, and maintain open and direct lines of communication," his office said. "Gen. Brown reiterated the importance of the People's Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings."

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top U.S. officials have stressed the need to maintain dialogue between the U.S. and Chinese militaries to avoid potential miscalculations and misunderstandings.

China broke off military contact with the U.S. following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022, after which China significantly increased military activity around the self-governing island that China considers to be a breakaway province.

U.S. defense officials said Thursday's call was a direct result of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit last month where they agreed to rebuild military-to-military contacts.

"It's one step, an important step, but it's not the last step and that's why we're continuing to have working-level discussions with [China] about future engagements to make sure that we deliver on what President Biden and Chairman Xi agreed to in November," a senior military official told reporters ahead of Thursday's call.

(At the meeting last month, sources recently told ABC News, Xi also reiterated to Biden that China intends to try and reunify with Taiwan -- a controversial goal with far-reaching ramifications.)

The military official said that early plans call for the resumption next spring of previously delayed regular meetings between the two countries.

The Pentagon, underlining what it saw as the risk of a lack of communication with China, in October made public videos of some of the more than 180 interactions since the fall of 2021 with Chinese fighter aircraft over the South China Sea and elsewhere in the Pacific that they characterized as provocative and risky.

Since that release, there has not been another "unsafe and unprofessional" interaction between U.S. military assets and Chinese aircraft, the senior U.S. military official said, though they noted that China has continued what the U.S. considers provocations elsewhere -- particularly with the Philippines.

Any potential contacts between Austin and a Chinese counterpart will have to await China's naming of a defense minister after Gen. Li Shangfu's removal earlier this year.