I am not a fan of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Among the many reasons for my antipathy toward the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime are its ongoing acts of aggression against the Philippines (my birth country) and Chinese state-run media’s deliberate attempt to undermine American sovereignty by verbally attacking our Second Amendment rights.
China is also most clearly no friend to the United States of America or our allies. So imagine my disbelief upon seeing a recent headline that reads “China Says Plans for Talks With US Military Are in the Works.” Say what?
Diplomacy with China?
That head-scratching headline comes to us from Bloomberg News in an article republished on MSN on or about March 3, 2025. To wit:
“China said efforts to facilitate talks with the US military are in their early stages, a development that could lead to an easing of tensions spurred by Beijing’s recent ramping up of naval activity … ‘There have been some preliminary plans and arrangements for exchanges in the foreseeable future,’ Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said Thursday at a regular briefing in Beijing. He said more information would be released ‘in due course,’ without elaborating … ‘It is hoped that China-US military-to-military relations get off to a good start and continue to grow further,’ Wu said, referring to President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last month.”
Prior History of PRC-U.S. Senior Military Talks
According to the Bloomberg article, the last publicly-known contact between senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and U.S. military officials was in September 2024, during the Biden administration, when the commanders overseeing operations in the South China Sea held a conference call.
Of course, going back to happier times (comparatively speaking) for U.S.-PRC relations, the final decade of the Cold War was one of very collegial military cooperation between the two nations. At the time, the philosophy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” rang true, as the two nations saw each other loosely as allies against a common foe, the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Reagan administration’s China policy of the 1980s could be seen in many ways as an extension of Richard Nixon’s playing of the so-called “China card” against the Soviets the decade prior.
Even decades after the Cold War ended, the militaries of the United States and the PRC were interacting in an officially cordial manner, as seen in the 2014 and 2016 installments of the biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercise.
The United States and China: How Times Have Changed
But that was then, and this is now. Understandably so, the United States uninvited China from RIMPAC in 2018. Moscow has mended fences with Beijing, and both work openly with other bad actors like Iran and North Korea to undermine the United States and its allies.
Therefore, assuming these high-level talks do indeed come to fruition, notwithstanding the benevolent spin that Wu Qian is attempting to put on things, U.S. military leaders participating therein would be well advised to “beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” After all, as a classic Chinese text on geopolitical strategy advises, “Hide your dagger behind a smile.”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor forNational Security Journal (NSJ) and19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security , and Simple Flying . Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS) . If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: Alexander Ryabintsev / Shutterstock.com.