US Pentagon chief speaks with Chinese counterpart for first time since November 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with China's national defense minister Tuesday morning, in the latest in a series of U.S. steps to improve communications with the Chinese military and reduce unsafe and aggressive incidents in the Indo-Pacific.

It was the first time Austin has talked to Adm. Dong Jun and the first time he has spoken at length with any Chinese counterpart since November 2022. The call, which lasted a bit more than an hour, comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China this month for talks.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said that Austin “emphasized the importance of continuing to open lines of military-to-military communication” between the United States and the People's Republic of China. And he underscored the importance of respect for freedom of navigation on the seas, especially in the South China Sea.

Washington and Beijing have been working to expand communications and ease escalating tensions. Military-to-military contact stalled in August 2022, when Beijing suspended all such communication after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

The thaw in relations between the two world powers got a kick-start last November when President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. About a month later, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Chinese counterpart in a video call — in the first senior military-to-military contact since the Pelosi visit.

Austin's call with Dong has been widely anticipated, but the admiral was only appointed to the defense job in December. Previous defense minister Wei Fenghe turned down a Pentagon request to speak with Austin last year after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had floated across the country. Austin had previously met with Wei in 2022 on the sidelines of a defense conference in Cambodia.

Defense officials are concerned about unsafe and unprofessional incidents involving the U.S. and Chinese militaries in the Pacific.

Pelosi's visit sparked a surge in military maneuvers by China. Beijing dispatched warships and aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, claiming the de facto boundary did not exist, fired missiles over Taiwan itself, and challenged established norms by firing missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

During the following two years, U.S. military officials repeatedly objected to a range of unsafe intercepts by Chinese aircraft in the Pacific and other dangerous incidents. Some of those confrontations have ebbed a bit, but the U.S. has been concerned about aggressive behavior by Chinese vessels against Philippine ships in the South China Sea.

Ryder said that Austin in his conversation with Dong also discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine, concerns about North Korea and the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

A senior defense official told reporters that Austin's call on Tuesday gives the U.S. the opportunity to prevent ongoing competition with China from veering into conflict. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide a preview of the call, said the U.S. hasn't seen any unsafe or unprofessional intercepts of American aircraft since last November, but China's coercive behavior toward Philippines' ships risks escalation.

U.S. and Chinese defense officials met earlier this month in Hawaii to discuss aggressive ship and aircraft incidents between the two militaries in the Pacific region. The two-day China-U.S. Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meeting included about 18 military and civilian personnel from each side and it was the first time since 2019 that it was held in person. There was a virtual meeting in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testifies before Senate Committee on Armed Services during a hearing on Department of Defense Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense Program on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

NEW YORK (AP) — Paramount Global on Monday announced that Bob Bakish is stepping down as CEO of the film, television and multimedia company.

Bakish will be replaced by a troika of executives who will form a new “Office of the CEO.” The group includes George Cheeks, the CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, the CEO of Paramount Pictures.

The company said Cheeks, McCarthy and Robbins will work closely with Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra and the board of directors. Among the issues the new CEO trio must face are a reported $11 billion offer from private-equity firm Apollo Global to acquire the studio, which produces films and television programs and runs the streaming service Paramount+.

There have also been reports of a possible merger with Skydance, David Ellison’s media company that has helped produce such Paramount releases as “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.”

Co-CEOs are rare but far from unknown; roughly 100 public companies such as Salesforce, Netflix, Chipotle Mexican Grill, SAP and Oracle have all had co-CEOs for various periods of time over the past quarter century. A 2022 study published in the Harvard Business Review found that among 87 co-CEO led companies, dual leadership coincided with better-than-average stock performance. Roughly 60% of these companies outperformed.

CEO troikas, however, are far rarer, and their organizational issues can be much more complex. For instance, instead of being forced to compromise the way co-CEOs often are, two members of a troika can just outvote a third.

Paramount also released earnings for the quarter ended March 31 on Monday, reporting a net loss attributable to Paramount of $554 million, or 87 cents per share, a reduction from a $1.1 billion net loss, or $1.74 per share, in the same year-earlier period. The company reported revenue of $7.66 billion, a 5.8% increase from $7.27 billion a year earlier.

The earnings in the latest quarter, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to 62 cents per share. That topped expectations of 35 cents a share, according to a FactSet poll.

In what may have been a sly nod to the challenge it faces, Paramount closed out the Monday conference call in which it described the CEO changes and earnings with the theme to “Mission: Impossible.”

FILE - Paramount CEO Bob Bakish speaks as he attends an interview during the Barron's Roundtable at the Fox Business Network, Aug. 5, 2022, in New York. Paramount Global on Monday, April 29, 2024, announced that Bakish is stepping down as CEO of the film, television and multimedia company. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)