WASHINGTON (AP) — Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday in the first talks between the two nations’ senior military leaders, officials said, as the Biden administration works to thaw relations with Beijing.

The video call between Brown and General Liu Zhenli is the first high-level military communication between the US and China since August 2022, when Beijing suspended all such contacts following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. It follows similar talks between senior US and Chinese diplomats, all sparked by the meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month.

Biden’s meeting with Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco was aimed in part at resuming military talks as concerns grew about frequent unsafe or unprofessional incidents between the two nations’ ships and aircraft in the Pacific region.

Brown and Liu “discussed the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations and maintain open and direct lines of communication,” Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, Brown’s spokesman, said in a statement.

The US has always viewed military communications with China as crucial to avoiding missteps between its militaries and maintaining a peaceful Indo-Pacific region.

Brown’s call is the first Cabinet-level communication with China since Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Dec. 6.

While few other details about Brown’s call were released, a senior U.S. defense official and a senior military official said it was an important first step. The US needs to have such discussions with China, they said, to avoid misunderstandings or misjudgments when the two militaries interact. The two officials spoke to reporters before the call on condition of anonymity to provide information.

They said the U.S. would talk to China at various levels to work out a series of phone calls and meetings in the coming weeks and months. These include plans to hold bilateral defense policy coordination talks early next year and the possible resumption of talks on a China-US military maritime deal in the spring.

During the call, Brown reiterated the importance of holding political and maritime discussions and opening lines of communication with the two countries’ top commanders in the Pacific, Dorsey said in his statement.

In August 2022, Beijing suspended all military contacts with the United States as Pelosi became the highest-ranking American lawmaker to visit Taiwan since 1997, when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich traveled there. Her visit sparked a surge in Chinese military maneuvers. Beijing sent warships and aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, claiming the de facto border did not exist, fired missiles over Taiwan itself and challenged established norms by firing missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

There has also been an increase in incidents involving Chinese aircraft and warships, which the Pentagon describes as risky events. The Defense Department in October released video footage of some of the more than 180 intercepts by Chinese aircraft on U.S. warplanes in the past two years – more than the total in the last decade. In one recent incident, a Chinese pilot flew within 10 feet (3 meters) of a U.S. Air Force B-52 that was conducting routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace.

While officials called the call between Brown and Liu an important first step, the Pentagon continued to raise concerns about China’s aggressive military interactions in the Indo-Pacific and worked to build alliances with other nations in the region.

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with defense chiefs from Australia and the United Kingdom to negotiate a new agreement to improve technological cooperation and information sharing as part of a broader effort to counter China’s rapidly growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.

The new technology agreement is the next step in expanding military cooperation with Australia and includes plans to equip Sydney with a fleet of eight nuclear submarines. And defense leaders pointed to China’s efforts to restrict freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific as a reason to increase their cooperation.

Additionally, Admiral John Aquilino, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, expressed concern earlier this week about increasing joint military actions by China and Russia in the region. In his speech in Tokyo, he said it went far beyond a “marriage of convenience” between Beijing and Moscow and called on China to stop escalating maritime confrontations with its neighbors.

China’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has criticized the US for its interference in both Taiwan and the South China Sea, claiming that American arms sales to Taiwan would make the situation more dangerous.