Pentagon Confirms U.S.-China Crisis Prevention Talks

Oct. 30, 2020 (EIRNS)—The Pentagon issued a statement yesterday reporting on the two-day meeting of the first U.S.-China Crisis Communications Working Group by video teleconference to discuss concepts of crisis communications, crisis prevention, and crisis management. The Chinese readout on this meeting was covered in the EIR Daily Alert for Oct. 30. The DOD statement said: “The meeting provided an opportunity to build mutual understanding between the U.S. military and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on principles to prevent and manage crisis and reduce risk to forces. The two sides agreed on the importance of establishing mechanisms for timely communication during a crisis, as well as the need to maintain regular communication channels to prevent crisis and conduct post-crisis assessment.”

The U.S. delegation, as host, included representatives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the United States Indo-Pacific Command. The Chinese delegation included representatives of the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) Office for International Military Cooperation, the CMC Joint Staff Department, and the PLA Southern Theater Command.

The Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Wu Qian said that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper assured the Chinese through military and diplomatic channels that there was no “October Surprise” coming from the U.S. in the form of a rumored plan to attack Chinese islands in the South China Sea with Predator drones. This was not confirmed by the Pentagon statement.