CHINESE Defence Minister Dong Jun met his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in Singapore today for more than an hour of talks.

Beijing and Washington are working to repair lines of communication between their two militaries as tensions between them continue to rise in the Indo-Pacific region.

The closed-doors meeting was the first in-person encounter between Mr Dong and Mr Austin since contacts between the US and Chinese militaries broke down in 2022 after then US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the breakaway Chinese province of Taiwan.