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Directly after the U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday, the Pentagon’s top civilian attempted to reach out to his Chinese counterpart but was rebuffed, the Defense Department revealed Tuesday.
“Immediately after taking action to down the [People’s Republic of China] balloon, the DOD submitted a request for a secure call between” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the PRC has declined our request,” he added, noting that the U.S. will continue to keep communication channels open.
The United States keeps lines of communication free between itself and other countries such as Russia and China to avoid any situation such as missile tests or military drills being misconstrued and spinning into an unintended conflict.
