US military ties with China have been slow to recover from the forced landing of a US Navy spy plane on a Chinese island more than two years ago. But the prospect of closer military relations and Washington's push to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program are among the chief reasons for a trip to Asia by the top US general.
Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left Saturday for a tour that will take him to Japan, Mongolia, China and Australia.
Myers' predecessor, Army General John Shalikashvili, visited China in May 1997. No other Joint Chiefs chairman has gone to China since the early 1980s.
China is wary of US intentions in Asia and the Pacific, most notably regarding Taiwan.
"Myers' trip comes at a good time in US-China relations," but also at a time of substantial risk of a confrontation over Taiwan's ambitions for independence, said Ashton Carter, who was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during former president Bill Clinton's administration.
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has declared that an immediate security threat from China exists. He has announced that the island will hold a referendum on March 20 -- the day Chen seeks re-election -- on whether China should stop pointing hundreds of missiles at Taiwan.
For China, even referendums on mundane issues threaten to lead Taiwan to an independence vote, which Beijing has threatened to stop by force. To the chagrin of conservatives in Congress, the administration has criticized the referendum plans.
US President George W. Bush's Pentagon has been highly skeptical of the value of military cooperation with China.
Relations sank to new lows in April 2001, when Chinese fighter pilot Wang Wei flew his jet too close to the US reconnaissance EP-3E that it had been shadowing over international waters off China's Hainan island.
The two planes collided. Wang's plunged into the South China Sea and he became a national hero. The Navy plane had to make an unauthorized emergency landing on Hainan. The Chinese military kept the 24-member crew in custody for 11 days.
At that point, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ended military contacts with China. Relations have improved only gradually since.
Unlike his two most immediate predecessors at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld has not visited China. He did meet his counterpart, Geneal Cao Gangchuan, in Washington in October.
Before Myers, the highest-ranking US military officer to visit China under Bush has been Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander of US Pacific Command. In a speech at Shanghai's Fudan University in December 2002, Fargo said it was important to promote "a genuine exchange of thought" and consistency in the relationship.
The state of US-China military relations has been anything but consistent in recent decades.
Ties were severed after China's army-led crackdown in 1989 on student protests at Tiananmen Square.
A 1994 visit to Beijing by then-defense secretary William Perry was meant to put relations back on track, but that effort was short-lived.
In 1996 China lobbed missiles near Taiwan during the island's first direct presidential election. In response, Clinton sent two aircraft carrier groups to the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait. It was the largest US naval movement in the Asia-Pacific region since the Vietnam War.
High-level Chinese military visits to Washington were canceled after that. Relations improved until satellite-guided bombs from an Air Force B-2 bomber hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the US air war over Kosovo in May 1999. China broke off military contacts with the US after that.
Carter, co-director with Perry of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project, said in an interview Friday that most of China's leaders believe US-China relations have never been better.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS