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Building military confidence
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CHINA’S defense ministry said yesterday that Chinese and US officials agreed earlier this month to speed up efforts to build confidence between their militaries, just weeks after an air confrontation raised tensions.
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice and General Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, met in early September when Rice visited Beijing for three days of talks that included President Xi Jinping.
Chinese defense ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said Fan and Rice agreed on the importance of a pair of confidence-building measures that the two sides were working toward.
“The two sides agreed that the two confidence-building mechanisms were very important for enhancing strategic and mutual trust of the two countries and that relevant work should be conducted at a faster pace so that substantial progress can be made,” Geng told reporters.
“Currently both sides are making joint efforts toward this goal,” he added.
The measures have their roots in a summit meeting between Xi and US President Barack Obama in June last year where they agreed to establish a mutual mechanism for identifying major military activities as well as rules of behavior in the air and at sea, Geng said.
Rice’s September visit came three weeks after the Pentagon said in August that an armed Chinese warplane came within 9 meters of a US surveillance aircraft flying over waters about 220 kilometers east of China’s Hainan island.
China, which says that the waters are part of its exclusive economic zone, dismissed the accusation as “groundless” and called on the US to end air and naval surveillance near its borders.
The encounter led to comparisons with an incident in April 2001, when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US Navy EP-3 spy plane around 110 kilometers off Hainan.
One Chinese pilot died and the US plane had to make an emergency landing on Hainan where China detained the crew for more than a week until Beijing and Washington negotiated their release.
The US is focusing greater attention on Asia and has boosted its military presence in the region.
China, meanwhile, has been rapidly modernizing its military amid maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
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