Anonymous US intelligence officials are claiming that the head of the CIA secretly went to China last month in an effort to smooth relations between Beijing and Washington, Western media is reporting.
“Last month, [CIA Director Bill] Burns traveled to Beijing where he met with Chinese counterparts and emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communications in intelligence channels,” one unnamed US official reportedly told a British outlet.
A major American outlet wrote that a separate nameless US official described the trip as an “intelligence to intelligence engagement, not a diplomatic mission.”
If confirmed, Burns’ trip would mark the highest-level visit to China by a US official since Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s visit to Tianjin in July 2021.
Accounts of the alleged visit were published in Western media outlets just days after it was reported that China's Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu declined to hold a meeting at this week’s Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore with his American counterpart due to ongoing US sanctions targeting him personally.
Ultimately, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reportedly had to make do with a quick handshake and a brief photo-op with Shangfu, with the Pentagon subsequently grumbling that there hadn’t been a “substantive exchange” between the two military chiefs.
“Secretary Austin and PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu spoke briefly at tonight’s opening dinner of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The two leaders shook hands, but did not have a substantive exchange,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement Friday.
On Thursday, Austin complained that it was “unfortunate” that Chinese authorities were apparently uninterested in a face-to-face meet, telling reporters he was “concerned about . . . having an incident that could very, very quickly spiral out of control.”
“I think defense departments should be talking to each other on a routine basis,” insisted Austin, who last year reportedly went five months without speaking to his Russian counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Austin earlier indicated in May that he had anticipated holding meetings with his Chinese counterpart during the forum; however, China had declined to do so.