A House delegation led by Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) arrived in Beijing over the weekend and held a rare in-person meeting Monday with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun.
The meeting marked Dong’s highest-profile diplomatic appearance since reports surfaced of a corruption probe against him. Just last week, he reemerged publicly with a speech warning that the Communist Party was “always ready to defeat any external interference by force,” a direct threat to supporters of Taiwan’s sovereign government.
According to a Breitbart report, the visit is notable as no House delegation traveled to China under former President Joe Biden, with the last occurring in 2019. Rep. Smith, who supported former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial 2022 trip to Taiwan, drew attention given Beijing’s fierce response at the time, which included threats and the suspension of military communications with Washington.
“I don’t think we should let China dictate something like this. Nancy Pelosi’s the Speaker of the House. She’s one of the most powerful people in the country. If she wants to go visit Taiwan, she ought to be able to do that,” Rep. Smith said at the time.
Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, traveled to China with Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), and Michael Baumgartner (R-WA). Before meeting Defense Minister Dong Jun, the group met with Premier Li Qiang, a more traditional host for foreign delegations. The state-run Global Times hailed their visit—along with Friday’s call between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping—as “significant progress” in U.S.-China relations, noting that Dong urged the lawmakers to avoid “disruptive factors” and take “constructive, pragmatic measures” to improve military ties.
“The Chinese military is willing to build a military relationship with the US based on equality, respect, peaceful coexistence, and stable and positive development,” Dong reportedly told the lawmakers, “while firmly safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests.”
Chinese FM Wang Yi met with a U.S. congressional delegation in Beijing.
This visit marks the first delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives to China since 2019, and it should be considered an ice-breaking journey.
China’s door is always open, and more members of the… pic.twitter.com/6M7xampRZL
— Lin Jian 林剑 (@SpoxCHN_LinJian) September 24, 2025
The Global Times, a frequent mouthpiece for Beijing, praised the lawmakers’ visit while criticizing Congress for its “negative and obstructive role” in condemning China’s human rights abuses. These include the genocide of Uyghurs in East Turkistan, persecution of Tibetans, state-sponsored slavery, threats against Taiwan, and the 2019 crackdown in Hong Kong. Calling the trip “a new window for China-US relations,” the paper urged both sides to “work hard together in the same direction” to keep it open.
China’s Defense Ministry has faced consecutive leadership scandals, with two ministers removed in less than two years. Wei Fenghe quietly retired in early 2023, while his successor, Li Shangfu, vanished that August; by mid-2024, both were expelled from the Communist Party on corruption charges. After leaving the post vacant for months, Beijing appointed Dong Jun, who himself reportedly came under investigation in November and remained absent from public view until reemerging last week at the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing.
“The return of Taiwan to China is an integral part of the post-war international order,” Dong declared at that event. “We will never allow any ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist schemes to succeed, and we are always ready to defeat any external interference by force.”
However, Taiwan is a sovereign state with a fully independent government and is not a province of the People’s Republic of China.
The meeting between Dong and U.S. lawmakers came after President Trump’s “very productive” call with Xi Jinping on Friday, during which Trump announced plans to visit China in early 2026, with Xi pledging a U.S. visit afterward.
“I just completed a very productive call with President Xi of China. We made progress on many very important issues including Trade, Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump wrote.
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