Blinken says Xi refused to establish Pentagon deconfliction hotline

Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted Monday that Chinese President Xi Jinping had denied his request to re-establish a military backchannel to avoid potential conflict — as has existed for decades between the US and Russia.

Blinken told reporters after meeting with Xi in Beijing that he “repeatedly” raised the matter during his trip but that “at this moment, China does not agree to move forward.”

The Chinese government scrapped both the military-to-military line and some diplomatic talks last year in protest of a Taiwan trip by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Biden administration said reestablishing the linkup was one of Blinken’s top goals.

“I think it’s absolutely vital that we have these kind of communications, military to military,” Blinken said at a 31-minute press conference in the Chinese capital. “I think that’s an issue that we have to keep working on. It is very important that we restore those channels.”

Blinken said Chinese officials had agreed to cooperate on other fronts, including to halt the export of synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has fueled record-high US drug overdose deaths as it’s increasingly mixed into non-opioid drugs — such as cocaine — and pressed into counterfeit medications.

The Biden administration has taken political heat from Republicans for not doing more to address fentanyl at its source in China.

Anti-drug trafficking talks reportedly were among those halted amid hard feelings over Pelosi’s visit.

Blinken did not mention some major US priorities at his press conference, such as determining the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Biden said in a August 2021 written statement, after US spy agencies said it was “plausible” the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, that “[t]he world deserves answers, and I will not rest until we get them” — urging Beijing to be “fully” transparent to “prevent further pandemics” and chastising that “[r]esponsible nations do not shirk these kinds of responsibilities.”

China has not been transparent about the origins of COVID-19 and Biden has hardly mentioned the topic since his statement — despite mounting consensus, including from the FBI and the Energy Department, which includes the US National Laboratories, that the virus likely leaked from Wuhan labs, which were doing risky US-funded “gain of function” research that modified the genetics of bat coronaviruses.

Blinken also stressed that the Biden administration isn’t interested in “decoupling” economically from China — a word used by former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a 2024 rematch against Biden.

Instead, Blinken said, the US is interested in “derisking” and “diversifying” its trade relationships.

“Our countries trade more over the last year — by more than ever over the last year, nearly $700 billion. Healthy robust economic engagement benefits both United States and China,” Blinken said.

The historical existence of backchannel US-China military talks commanded public attention after reports that Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had sought to soothe Chinese defense leaders during the chaotic final stretch of Trump’s term by assuring them they’d get a heads-up on a US attack.

​”I said, ‘Hell, I’ll call you. But we’re not going to attack you’,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee in September 2021, broadly confirming an account in the book “Peril,” by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

Biden’s family has had extensive business relations with Chinese government-linked entities — though the president grumbled “give me a break, man,” in February when asked if his ability to manage the relationship was “compromised” after a Chinese spy balloon traversed the US.

First son Hunter Biden cofounded investment fund BHR Partners with Chinese state entities in 2013 — just 12 days after Hunter joined then-VP Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip to China’s capital and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children. 

The status of Hunter’s 10% stake in BHR, which says it manages nearly $2.2 billion in assets, remains unclear, with the White House refusing to provide any transparency.

Purported leaked BHR documents suggest Hunter’s “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer, may have taken the stake, though government databases were not updated.

First brother James Biden and first son Hunter later launched a second business venture in China — with government-linked CEFC China Energy — ultimately receiving $4.8 million, according to a Washington Post review of records from Hunter’s abandoned laptop.

Joe Biden was referred to as the “big guy” due a 10% cut in a May 2017 email about CEFC, a since-defunct reported cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign.

Two of Hunter Biden’s former associates, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, separately referred to the president as the “big guy”.

Bobulinski alleges that he discussed the CEFC deal with Joe Biden and an October 2017 email from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas. 

The CEFC relationship appears to have started around 2015 when Hunter connected with Vuk Jeremic, a former foreign minister of Serbia and president of the United Nations General Assembly who was running for UN secretary general, as his dad was vice president.

Blinken’s trip to China followed Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu refusing to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this month. 

The two shook hands “but did not have a substantive exchange,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at the time.