Congress delegation in Beijing for the first time since 2019
Between the United States and China there is the “risk of misunderstandings” between the respective armed forces, given that the technological progress of defense proceed quickly.
“I think that when you get hundreds, almost a thousand, of nuclear weapons, is the time to start talking about it to make sure to understand each other and not to incur any kind of conflict,” said Adam Smith, the US deputy at the head of the Bipartisan delegation of the Chamber visiting China and the oldest democratic component of the Commission for the Armed Forces.
Speaking in a press conference at the US embassy, Smith said that Beijing must dialogue more with the other powers “for a basic deconflicality. We have seen it with our ships, our planes, their ships, their planes that approach too much each other. We must have a more in -depth dialogue on the deconflicality of these things”.
The delegation of 4 deputies includes other members of the same commission – the Democrats Ro Khanna and Chrissy Houlahan, and the republican deputy Michael Baumgartner, of the Foreign Affairs Commission – and on Monday he met the Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun, with whom he spoke of the importance of “overcoming the differences”. The minister invited, for his part, to “remove disorder and restrictive factors”, reported the Xinhua state agency. Also on Monday, there were the talks with the vice premier He Lifeng, during which the current commercial negotiations and the issues of Fenanyl, the rare lands (a “not yet” clarified) and the future of Tiktok were treated. On the popular video app, Smith noticed that, “as far as I understood, I don’t think the case has been resolved 100%”.
In the press conference Smith added that “artificial intelligence, war with drones, cybersecurity and space are evolving rapidly. The risk of an incomprehension of the skills on the one hand or on the other is great,” he said, remarking the need to “dialogue so as not to stumble” in conflicts. The delegation began his visit on Sunday, the first since 2019, a few days after the presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump had their second phone call from the return to the White House of Tycoon.
