EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, ALASKA—Defense Secretary Jim Mattis laid out plans for a less contentious, more open dialogue with Chinese leaders as he travels to…
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, ALASKA—Defense Secretary Jim Mattis laid out plans for a less contentious, more open dialogue with Chinese leaders as he travels to Asia, less than a month after he slammed Beijing at an international conference for its militarization of islands in the South China Sea.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday en route to a stop in Alaska, Mattis avoided any of the sharp criticism of China that he had voiced recently.
Instead, he insisted that he was going into the talks with Chinese leaders without any preconceived notions, adding he wanted to focus on larger, more strategic security issues.
According to officials, a key topic of the discussions later this week will be the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the role China can play, considering its long-standing friendship with North Korea.
“I want to go in right now without basically poisoning the well at this point. I’m going there to have a conversation,” Mattis told reporters on his plane.
“I do not want to immediately go in with a certain preset expectation of what they are going to say. I want to go in and do a lot of listening,” he added.
Mattis’ more diplomatic tack reflects the US administration’s recognition of China’s crucial influence on Korea as negotiations move ahead to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.
US-China irritants
One senior US official said that while Mattis would willingly lay out America’s position on China’s military buildup in the South China Sea and other points of contention, the Pentagon chief didn’t want to open the conversations with “the irritants.”
Instead, the goal is to have higher quality talks about the two countries’ military relationship, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
