Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in China, meeting with President Hu today in a diplomatic effort to warm military-to-military relations between the two countries. Gates’ trip is in advance of the Obama-Hu summit in Washington next week. Military relations had frosted over this summer following $6.4 billion in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
Gates’ meeting with Hu followed on the heels of an encounter with Chinese defense chief Liang Guanglie, where the two agreed to begin regular strategic security talks in an effort to reduce tensions. The Pentagon believes that a structured long-term dialogue will build trust and focus on longer term issues as the United States—regardless of administration—will likely arm Taiwan for decades to come.
Top of the to-do list on military cooperation will no doubt be North Korea, and it’s hardly coincidence that Gates used this visit to highlight advances in Pyongyang’s military technology that could threaten the West Coast within five years. Further, as Michael Chase points out in a series of PPI memos on the Chinese military, getting Chinese buy-in on North Korea may rely in part on building trust first in areas like humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and anti-piracy missions, to name a few.
Sino-American tensions in military relations are nothing new, but Secretary Gates’ trip continues to expose a fascinating—and potentially dangerous—rift inside the Chinese bureaucracy: the lack of communication between Beijing’s military and civilian leaders.
This week, China unveiled the J-20, its first and only stealth fighter. China’s bizarre choice of this week—during Gates’ visit—to flex its newfound military muscles by test-flying the J-20 for the first time. When Gates signaled to President Hu that the test flight was unnecessarily provocative, Hu replied that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with Gates’ visit. Pointedly, Gates acknowledged his concern about the Chinese military acting independently of the political leadership, a problem that could in a worst-case scenario lead to unauthorized military action against, for example, Taiwan.
Getting China’s leaders to communicate with one another is well-outside the Obama administration’s powers, of course, but continuing to press Beijing’s political leadership on the issue is a good start.
