(Navy Times) Backtalk: Keeping China open

[unhappycamper]

Keeping China open
By Richard Halloran

HONG KONG — The symbolism was clear even if a bit muted. The commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Timothy Keating, came to this doorway to China in February to persuade leaders of the People’s Liberation Army to revive military exchanges with the U.S.

To give the Chinese a little extra nudge, the admiral had the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, among the most powerful warships afloat, anchor in Hong Kong’s harbor as he met informally with senior Chinese officers in garrison here. Hong Kong, after a century of British colonial rule, was turned over to Beijing in 1997 and became nominally an autonomous region within the People’s Republic of China.

In a roundtable session with news correspondents, Keating said he had reason to believe Beijing was ready to renew those exchanges. Pressed to explain why he thought so, Keating was reluctant to provide details but noted there had been “indirect but unmistakable forms of communication” through third parties, including visitors to his headquarters in Hawaii, that indicated the Chinese were open to negotiation.

Further, the admiral disclosed that an initiative was underway to forge an agreement intended to prevent hostile incidents between U.S. and Chinese warships at sea. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had an agreement during the Cold War that neither navy would train its guns on the other’s warships or fly fighters over the other’s ships. Keating said the new effort was in its earliest stages.

Sino-U.S. military exchanges, which had been expanding in fits and starts for more than a decade, were abruptly broken off by the Chinese in October after the U.S. announced it would sell $6.5 billion worth of arms to Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty. The U.S. is obliged, under the Taiwan Relations Act, to provide Taiwan with weapons to defend itself.


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/community/opinion/navy_backtalk_china_030909/%2e