Kirk Campbell may be reading the leaves of recent denials by the PRC to meet, including their critical denial of SECDEF Austin's request to meet "the wrong person." Obviously, the right person in Beijing's mind is Min Def Wei Fenghe, who presides over a largely ceremonial and protocol-oriented organization created in 1954 to provide a host for other militaries. The Pentagon knows this quite well and wants to meet with the functional equivalent of the Secretary - the senior Vice Chairman of the real military C2, the CMC. The Chinese refusal to meet at the functional level signals a desire to only meet at the perfunctory, protocol level. Ergo, no true engagement is possible, leaving competition and escalatory deterrence actions to follow.