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| USS Cowpens (Image: US Navy via Flickr) |
By Zachary Keck
Unprecedented improvements in U.S.-China mil-to-mil ties have not appreciably reduced tensions.
Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has taken to calling for a new type of major power relationship with the United States. Yet, from America’s perspective, there have been few major breakthroughs in U.S.-China relations since Xi took the reins of the Communist Party in November 2012.
One notable exception to this has been military-to-military cooperation. The U.S. has long sought greater mil-to-mil cooperation with China on the belief that more frequent and frank exchanges would reduce distrust and the potential for conflict. For many years, however, there has only been very gradual progress on Sino-American mil-to-mil ties, and even this has usually been followed by a major setback over some intervening issue like U.S. arm sales to Taiwan.
Given this history, 2013 has been stunning with regard to U.S.-China mil-to-mil ties. The turning point seemed to come in April of this year, a month after Xi became president of China, when the new PLA Chief of Staff Gen. Fang Fenghui hosted his American counterpart, Martin Dempsey, in Beijing.
Since then there has been a seemingly never-ending number of senior military and defense officials traveling between Beijing and Washington for similar trips. In August of this year, for instance, China’s Defense Minister Chang Wanquan led a Chinese military delegation on a four-day trip to the U.S. The following month, Adm. Wu Shengli, the head of the PLA Navy, also traveled to the United States.
Read the full story at The Diplomat