Gates Seeks Sustained Military Relationship with China

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2011 — The mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship between the Unit­ed States and Chi­na has been restored, and this gives Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates the chance to dis­cuss sub­stan­tive issues with his Chi­nese coun­ter­parts next week, senior defense offi­cials said today.
Gates also will trav­el to Tokyo and to Seoul, South Korea, in the week­long trip.

Offi­cials said they see Gates’ vis­it to Bei­jing as a chance to press for a mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary dia­logue that con­tin­ues to func­tion even if the rela­tion­ship falls upon some rocky times. Chi­na has start­ed and stopped the mil­i­tary and secu­ri­ty rela­tion­ship in response to polit­i­cal deci­sions. Last year, in response to the Unit­ed States sell­ing arms to Tai­wan, Chi­na sus­pend­ed its mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary con­tacts with the Unit­ed States. It has tak­en months to re-estab­lish the contacts. 

“We’ve man­aged over the past cou­ple of months through the mil­i­tary mar­itime con­sul­ta­tive meet­ings held in Hawaii and the defense con­sul­ta­tive talks in Wash­ing­ton last month to get the mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship mov­ing again,” a senior offi­cial said, speak­ing on back­ground. “We’re hope­ful … we can have pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions in Bei­jing about how we build a more durable frame­work to ensure as we go for­ward we have a rela­tion­ship in the mil­i­tary-secu­ri­ty sphere that is reli­able and sus­tain­able and allows us to have clear lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tions between our leaders. 

“In essence,” the offi­cial con­tin­ued, “we want to build a rela­tion­ship between the Depart­ment of Defense and the [Chi­nese mil­i­tary], between the Unit­ed States and Chi­na, that is defined not by the obsta­cles that stand between us, but by our com­mon interests.” 

The Unit­ed States wants a sta­ble, sus­tained and reli­able mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship with the Chi­nese, and noth­ing real­ly pre­cludes this, the offi­cial said. Pen­ta­gon offi­cials not­ed that even in the dark­est days of the U.S. rela­tion­ship with the Sovi­et Union, the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary still had ways to con­tact Sovi­et mil­i­tary lead­ers. Chi­na is not an ene­my, and the Unit­ed States and Chi­na should be able to con­tin­ue dia­logue, U.S. offi­cials maintain. 

Gates will meet with Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Hu Jin­tao, who then will fly to Wash­ing­ton for a state vis­it with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. 

The sec­re­tary also will meet with Gen. Liang Guan­glie, China’s min­is­ter of nation­al defense; Chi­nese Vice Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping; and Gen. Xu Cai­hou, vice chair­man of the Cen­tral Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sion. He also will meet with Chi­nese For­eign Min­is­ter Yang Jiechi. 

The sec­re­tary will vis­it the Chi­nese army’s 2nd Artillery Corps, the head­quar­ters of the Chi­nese nuclear command. 

The sec­re­tary hopes to dis­cuss a wide range of issues with Chi­nese offi­cials, the senior offi­cial said, includ­ing areas where the Unit­ed States and Chi­na have mutu­al con­cerns –- such as North Korea, Iran and pira­cy –- and areas where they dis­agree or are hazy, such as cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and mil­i­tary modernization. 

The sec­re­tary looks for­ward to explor­ing areas where Chi­nese and Amer­i­can ser­vice mem­bers can work togeth­er such as human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance and dis­as­ter relief. “These areas would allow the two coun­tries to coop­er­ate and build more pos­i­tive habits of mind,” the offi­cial said. 

In Japan, the sec­re­tary will speak with lead­ers to deep­en and strength­en the already strong alliance between the two nations. The U.S.-Japan alliance remains a cor­ner­stone to secu­ri­ty in the Pacif­ic, the offi­cial said. 

“We want to be able to expand on the areas where the Unit­ed States and Japan are work­ing togeth­er and also to con­sult with our Japan­ese friends and part­ners on some devel­op­ments in the region, such as North Korea’s provoca­tive actions,” he said. 

The stop in Seoul will involve dis­cus­sions to look at ways how the U.S. and South Korea can work more close­ly togeth­er to address North Korea’s provo­ca­tions and North Korea’s nuclear and advanced mis­sile pro­grams, the offi­cial said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →