Vientiane, Laos | South-east Asian defence chiefs on Thursday met with China, the United States and other partner nations in Laos for security talks, which come as Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance in its claim to most of the South China Sea is leading to more confrontations.
The closed-door talks put US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun in the same room a day after the latter refused a request to meet with his American counterpart one-on-one on the sidelines of the ASEAN defence ministers’ meetings.