Xi rejects US offer to set up military crisis hotline, Blinken says

China rejected a U.S. offer to set up a direct military line of communication between Washington and Beijing, which is a priority goal for the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.

Blinken’s remarks came at a press conference shortly after he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a rare exception to diplomatic protocol that signals the seriousness with which Beijing took Blinken’s visit and the relationship. 

But Blinken said although he “repeatedly” raised the need for the U.S. and Chinese militaries to have a crisis communication line to quickly tamp down tensions and walk back confrontations, “at this moment, China has not agreed to move forward with that.”

Setting up a crisis hotline is a top priority for Biden administration officials, who have had their calls ignored in the wake of dangerous confrontations between Chinese and U.S. militaries. This includes close calls in the air and on the South China Sea, a rare Chinese naval provocation in the Taiwan Strait and officials in Beijing refusing to pick up the phone when the U.S. reached out after shooting down a Chinese spy balloon in February. 

Following his two-day visit in Beijing, Blinken said Monday the U.S. would continue to press for a direct military-to-military channel, and senior Chinese officials accepted invitations to continue high-level discussions in Washington, framing the visit as making incremental progress on issues upon which there are profound and vehement disagreements. 

“If we agree that we have a responsibility to manage this relationship responsibly, if we agree that it’s in our mutual interest, to make sure that the competitive aspects of the relationship don’t veer into conflict, then surely we can agree and see the need for making sure that the channels of communication that we both said are necessary, to do that include military to military channels,” Blinken said. 

“So this is something that we’re going to keep working on,” he added. “And as I said, there’s no immediate progress, but it is a continuing priority for us.”