Opinion

Why the US must revoke sanctions on China’s defence minister – now

While progress has been made on the diplomatic and military front, US-China military-to-military contact remains frozen

US sanction on Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu is a sticking point that must be resolved to avoid the risk of dangerous miscalculations

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Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert.

Published: 12:30am, 19 Jul 2023Updated: 9:28am, 19 Jul 2023

When US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived at Beijing’s international airport on July 6, something rare appeared – a rainbow in the sky after a shower. American ambassador to China Nicolas Burns wasted no time in pointing this out to a smiling Yellen. When he met Yellen, Chinese Premier Li Qiang also mentioned the rainbow, saying, “I think there is more to China-US relations than just wind and rain…we will surely see more rainbows after going through the wind and rain.”

The question is how much wind and rain we will have to confront before we see a rainbow again. While there seems to have been small advances in the diplomatic and economic fields, there is no sign of “de-risking” in one crucial area – communication between the two militaries.

There was a time when both sides believed that the military-to-military relationship could even serve as a ballast stone amid political or economic tension. Such optimism is long gone. In the wake of then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Beijing responded with days of military exercises near and around the island and suspended US-China military-to-military interactions.