BEIJING: Military Mistrust Grapples Between China and US as Pentagon hosts the highest-level Chinese military visit to the United States next week. The ties are severed between the two armed forces in early 2010 in protest over a $6.3 billion US arms deal with Taiwan.
The visit by the General Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, and seven other generals comes amid warming Sino-US ties following President Hu Jintao’s first state visit to the United States in January, US military officials said.
In addition to meeting his US counterpart, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chen will visit Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of Congress and will speak at the National Defense University on the bilateral military relations.
Officials hope the visit will begin to turn around a relationship that in recent years often has been overshadowed by tensions caused by US arms sales to Taiwan and US concerns about China’s rapid military expansion.
“The lack of high-level and sustained military-to-military engagement means that the whole of the US-China relationship remains unbalanced,” said Cheung Tai Ming, a senior fellow at the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.
Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, hopes the visit will lead to establishment of more frequent contact with Chen, such as regular phone calls, to enable them to “develop a bit of a relationship,” a senior military official said.
“The region and the world really expect our two militaries to have an institutionalized relationship,” the official said, in which “there is some trust and transparency between us” and miscommunications or mishaps do not inadvertently spin out of control.
While Mullen and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been pushing to institutionalize contacts between the two militaries, it is not clear if China is ready for such a move.
Arms Sales to Taiwan
Chen told a visiting US delegation last month that arms sales to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, were still the biggest obstacle facing the military-to-military relationship.
The issue of Taiwan arms sales is likely to be raised during Chen’s visit but will not be solved and US officials will try to make the point that it should not prevent establishing a “positive and durable relationship,” a US military official said.
China suspended its military links with the United States in January 2010 after President Barack Obama’s administration announced $6.3 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan, including Patriot anti-missile systems and Apache attack helicopters.
Ties remained severed through much of 2010 before tentative contacts resumed in the final months of the year. Meanwhile, the United States and others in the region have watched with concern as China’s military displayed a growing military aggressiveness while rapidly expanding its military.
In a show of muscle, China confirmed it had held its first test flight of the J-20 stealth fighter during a January visit to Beijing by Gates. Rapid development of the fighter to counter the US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter caught some by surprise.
It also is possible China will launch its first aircraft carrier later this year.
Chinese ships shadowing US vessels in the South China Sea and Beijing’s surprise launch of a missile that destroyed an inactive Chinese satellite in 2007 have raised worries about the risk of dangerous missteps, especially as China’s military increasingly rubs up against US forces in Asia.
But Admiral Robert Willard, head of US forces in the Pacific, told a Senate hearing last month that Chinese forces had been less aggressive this year. And a US official said a warming trend in ties had begun following Hu’s state visit in January.
For its part, China sees the heavy US military presence in Asia, especially bases in South Korea and Japan, as threats to its influence and interests.
However, both also see the need to communicate better.
“This military relationship is taking on more importance, not only because as China’s military develops so do the chances of mistrust, but also because cooperation in problem spots like Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot develop without it,” said Peking University professor Zhu Feng.
Apart from meeting top US civilian and military leaders, Chen and his 24-member delegation will visit four bases – Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, Fort Stewart in Georgia, Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and the Army National Training Center in California.
