New Sino-U.S. Military Relations: Seeking Cooperation and Promoting Equality

In this new decade, it will not be difficult for Chinese and American armed forces to construct a new military relationship. China hopes that the two sides can treat each other equally, harboring no unsuitable expectations. While it is clear that American inaction is unprofitable for China, it is even more harmful to the United States itself. This is the simple truth, and there is no need for elaboration.

In this new decade, it will not be difficult for Chinese and American armed forces to construct a new military relationship. China hopes that the two sides can treat each other equally, harboring no unsuitable expectations. While American inaction is unprofitable to China, it is even more harmful to the United States itself.

Chen Bingde, the Chief of General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.), is leading a high-level military delegation on an eight-day visit to the United States. This is the first visit to the United States by a high-ranking general since Deputy Xu Caihou’s visit in October 2009 and the first in seven years by a P.L.A. Chief of the General Staff.

China and the U.S. are the world’s two major states, but, strangely, there has only been one visit by one country’s army chief to staff to the other in seven years. This shows that Sino-U.S. military relations have long been poor. While both sides’ armed forces officers wanted cooperation, it has proven elusive, undoubtedly affecting both political and professional communication. This state of affairs is not conducive to strengthening communication and cooperation. Nor is it conducive to strengthening trust or stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

One reason for the strained relations is self-evident: the two sides are suspicious of one another, each treating the other as competition. The U.S. continues its long-term practice of considering China an oddity and using the force of threat to interfere with China’s national unity. Naturally, the Chinese mainland opposes this treatment and must rely on a strong army as the main source of national modernization. The United States is highly sensitive to this and responds by constantly sending military ships and planes to China’s coastal waters in order to insure setbacks in the modernization of China’s army. To this end, the U.S. constantly interferes in China’s affairs by conduct large-scale, high-intensity surveillance. Because the United States still worries that China will attempt to spy on U.S. intelligence, they have enacted a number of discriminatory laws, such as limiting high-tech exports to China and limiting the scope of Sino-U.S. military cooperation.

Sadly enough, the United States holds many complaints against China. While the U.S. has no grounds to object to Chinese military ships and aircrafts coming close to their own ships to limit U.S. military reconnaissance off of China’s coastal waters, it does complain that when the two sides near each other outside of China’s territorial waters, the Chinese ignore rules of traffic and impede upon the free navigational rights of U.S. military ships and aircrafts within China’s exclusive economic zones. The United States’ reasoning is that as a member of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China has violated its agreement by restricting access to areas off the coast of its exclusive economic zones because the convention stipulates that foreign military ships can carry out peaceful activities in these places.

While China has indeed joined the above mentioned convention, we do not believe that the United States’ recent surveillance can be considered peaceful. Because U.S. arms sales to Taiwan violated the United Nations Charter and damaged China’s fundamental peace, it is clear that the gathering of intelligence in China’s exclusive economic zone will only serve as an aid to the United States’ continued interference in Mainland-Taiwan affairs. In light of this, China cannot act on the premise that U.S. military activities in our exclusive economic zones are peaceful. China and the U.S. have debated about this for decades. If drawing from partial facts, both sides can justify their positions with quotes and citations. However, the source of the debate overall arises from the U.S. military threat to the reunification of China.

It does not matter how many U.S. military aircrafts and ships are hampered in China’s exclusive economic zones because it cannot be any clearer that U.S. activities toward China are not peaceful in nature. Therefore, there is good reason to dispute America’s legal protection by the United Nations under these circumstances. China’s intentions to carry out activities to prevent the division of the nation should be easy to understand. It is due to the difficult nature of the above mentioned disputes of interest that the two sides waited seven years before a Chinese chief of staff visited the Unites States.

With Chen Bingde’s visit to the U.S., the two countries are looking to build a new military relationship. This new relationship should be an equal partnership. I will first discuss equality and then get into cooperation. Over the years, the United States has continued to adopt policies detrimental to China’s core national interests, but China has never adopted policies that are harmful to the United States’ core national interests. China does not aim to spur the disunity of the American people. While it can be argued that China may not have the capability to disrupt American unity, it is more important to note that even though the United States has long taken up harmful policies toward China, China does not have the desire to cause similar disruption. The Chinese are struggling for equality with the United States, not world dominance, and on the basis of international law, China asks the United States for equal treatment. If the U.S. is unable to give us equal treatment, Sino-U.S. military relations based on equality cannot be achieved. Obviously, this is not only detrimental to China, but will be increasingly damaging to the United States itself. Even more unfair is the fact that the U.S. treats China unfairly while asking China to treat others fairly. It has become clear that in this new era, this sort of double standard may not be feasible.

The construction of new Sino-U.S. military relations also requires both sides to emphasize cooperation. There is already some cooperation in the area of Sino-U.S. military security, and there is even more room for cooperation opening up. Just within the past 10 years, the United States and China have significantly increased cooperation on export control, made non-proliferation agreements on North Korea and Iran’s suspected development of nuclear weapons and missile programs and, within the last decade, cooperated against international terrorism. All of this has helped to advance mutual respect and understanding between China and the U.S.

By building new Sino-U.S. military relations based on equality and respect, we will also be able to pursue a new cooperative direction in international security. Last year’s sinking of the Cheonan off the coast of the Korean peninsula and the shelling of the South Korean’s Yeonpyeong Island both increased Sino-U.S. communication and established Northeast Asia’s crises prevention and safety cooperation mechanism. Effective cooperation between the United States and China will certainly create a more peaceful situation in the region. While we are probably in need of more time for the Six-Party Talks to secure North Korea’s abandonment of its nuclear program, it is clear that the time is ripe for the creation of a multilateral mechanism that facilitates regional crisis prevention and treatment. The Six-Party Talks will have a positive effect on this region’s multilateral discussions. In this way, Sino-U.S. cooperation is looking quite promising.

In this new decade, it will not be difficult for Chinese and American armed forces to construct a new military relationship. China hopes that the two sides can treat each other equally, harboring no unsuitable expectations. While it is clear that American inaction is unprofitable to China, it is even more harmful to the United States. This is the simple truth, and there is no need for elaboration.