BEIJING, June 1 (Reuters) - China and the U.S. held "candid and constructive" exchanges at a meeting in Hawaii on air and maritime safety last week, agreeing that improved communication could reduce miscalculations and enhance professionalism, the Chinese Navy said.
The May 28-29 meeting was attended by representatives from both sides' militaries, it said in a statement late on Monday.
A separate statement from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said that it hosted representatives from the People's Liberation
Army in Honolulu for discussions focused on reducing the risk of unsafe and unprofessional encounters.
The meeting follows a high-profile summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump last month and could ease concerns about a lack of communication after the absence of top Chinese military officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional defence forum, in Singapore over the weekend.
At last month's summit, Xi and Trump agreed to pursue a "constructive relationship of strategic stability", which analysts say could set practical boundaries for how the two powers interact.
"This shared strategic framing shifts the bilateral dynamic beyond reactive crisis management toward more deliberate, forward‑looking stability‑building," said Wang Dong, an international studies professor at Peking University.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of China's historic military build-up and urged Asian countries to boost their defence spending and capabilities.
But he also said relations between the U.S. and China are better than they've been in many years and unlike in his address at the forum last year, did not mention Taiwan, suggesting Washington was adopting a measured tone on the contentious issue.
China views democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, and has never renounced the use of force against the island. The U.S. is bound by law to arm Taipei, which Beijing has long been opposed to.
In addition to stressing the importance of communication, the statement by the Chinese Navy also said that China "firmly opposes any action that undermines China's sovereignty and security."
(Reporting by Shi Bu, Xiuhao Chen and Liz Lee; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Edwina Gibbs)
