The United States is ready to send Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, to China's largest annual security forum in mid-September, a US official told Reuters, as quoted by News.bg.
Chase's selection has not yet been announced. He is more senior than the US official who attended the Xiangshan forum last year, but his rank is in line with the Pentagon's historical norms.
China's Deputy Assistant Minister of Defense Chad Sbragia Attends 2019 Forum
There is some hope that this could signal deeper engagement at a working level with China amid regional disputes.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Chase's expected presence is not unprecedented, but sends a message that the United States is prioritizing military-level engagement with China even in a period of heightened tensions.
More than 90 countries and international organizations plan to send delegations to the forum on September 12-14 in Beijing, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday.
Washington sent Xanthi Karas, China director in the office of the deputy defense secretary, when the forum resumed last year after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic. This was a sign of a thaw in military ties, but Karas's title is of a lower rank than Chase or Sbragia.
Chase co-chaired US-China military talks in Washington in January - the first such working-level talks since 2022, when most bilateral military engagements were suspended after then-US President Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
Taiwan and the South China Sea remain points of contention in US-China relations, with both sides unwilling to compromise on "core issues". US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said no new agreements had been reached on the South China Sea during a visit to China last week.
China has repeatedly criticized US deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, including the deployment of long-range missiles in the Philippines, as well as US arms sales to democratically-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory despite strong objections of Taipei.
Meanwhile, the US expressed concern about the "aggressive" China's actions in the South China Sea, its frequent military maneuvers in the air and waters around Taiwan, and what they say is the opacity of China's nuclear buildup.
Official nuclear talks were suspended by Beijing in July in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan. But both sides agreed that leaders of the US Indo-Pacific Command would soon speak by phone with their counterparts in the Southern Command, which covers its southern seas.