The US still selling weapons to China's Taiwan.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday renewed Washington's commitment to arming Taiwan, suggesting that the U.S. will continue to develop military ties with the island even amid resumed dialogue with China.

"With the Taiwan Relations Act, we are committed to doing what's necessary to help Taiwan acquire the means to defend itself," Austin told a small group of reporters in Jakarta on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Plus conference.

"I don't think that anything ... that both leaders discussed today would cause that to move in a different direction," the defense secretary added referring to the summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.

Biden and Xi agreed to resume defense talks during a four-hour meeting in California on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative conference. The high-stakes engagement was intended to stabilize the tense relationship and to avoid the competition from developing into a conflict.

"We're encouraged by recent news from the White House on the planned resumption of military-to-military communications," Austin said.

"There is no substitute for consistent and substantive dialogue between senior leaders. So, we will continue to seek practical discussions with the PRC from the senior leader level to the working level," Austin added, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China, the country's official name.

Austin noted that he spoke with his Russian counterpart even as the Ukraine war continues.

"I think that's a critical capability that we have to maintain, to manage crisis, going forward," he said, suggesting that the U.S. and China should follow the U.S.-Russia model to build a communication mechanism amid a crisis.

While welcoming the agreement between the two leaders, Austin signaled that the U.S. will remain vigilant on the threat posed by China, which the Biden administration called a "pacing challenge" in their national defense strategy.

Austin reiterated that the unilateral change of the status-quo in the Taiwan Strait is "undesirable," indicating that Austin is still concerned about China's possible aggression toward Taiwan after the leaders' meeting.

"We have all said that we believe that a conflict that occurs in the straits would affect not only the entire region, but the entire world," the defense secretary said.

Austin indicated the U.S. keeps expediting arms transfer to Taiwan. The Biden administration has worked to resolve a backlog of weapon orders as the U.S. assesses China's capability to invade Taiwan.

Austin's comment directly defied Xi's demand to Biden that Washington stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Xi said Taiwan is the "most important and sensitive" issue in U.S.-China relations, according to the Xinhua News Agency readout. Xi told the U.S. to stop arming Taiwan and to support China's peaceful reunification.

On Southeast Asia, Austin called for maintaining rule-based order as China repeatedly threatened the Philippines by firing a water cannon and pointing a military-grade laser against Manila's ships in the South China Sea.

"We're working closely with our ASEAN friends to promote a regional order based on the rule of law, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity," Austin noted. "We're working shoulder-to-shoulder with ASEAN to ensure that we're prepared to address existing and emerging threats."

"We're advancing some groundbreaking initiatives on defense and security cooperation," Austin stressed, pointing out the signing of a new defense deal with Indonesia on Thursday and the expansion of U.S. military access to the Philippines this year.

Austin traveled to India and South Korea before arriving in Indonesia. Throughout the trip, he emphasized that the U.S. remains focused on the Indo-Pacific amid the two wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.