China has reportedly rejected the possibility of a meeting between Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu and his United States (US) counterpart Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of a security forum in Singapore due to a dispute over sanctions.

According to media reports, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin wants to meet Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister, at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore in June.

However, arranging such a meeting is not exactly easy since because the US had slapped sanctions on Li in 2018 over imports of Russian weapons and defence equipment by China when he was serving as a general in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

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US officials have reportedly agreed to a meeting between Austin and Li in a third country, but Chinese officials have said it will be almost impossible for China to agree to a meeting while the sanctions remain in place. Li became defence minister of China in March.

The latest stalemate in diplomatic ties between the US and its global rival China relations comes as the two nations struggle to arrange high-level visits by American cabinet secretaries to Beijing.

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had agreed that the two countries need to stabilise bilateral relations when they met at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia last November. But efforts to normalise by starting high-level diplomatic engagement were derailed when a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over North America in February this year.

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