US defense visit will renew ties with rising China
Stealth fighter jets in development. category_ided missiles dubbed “carrier killers.” As America’s top defense official visits China next week, its growing military capabilities are redrawing the security landscape in Asia, putting the country with the largest standing army on a potential collision course with the United States.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrives late Sunday for a five-day visit, will formally restore military-to-military exchanges, cut off a year ago by Beijing over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. He last visited China in 2007.
In the past year, China’s diplomatic and military stance has became increasingly muscular, even confrontational, most notably at sea. Worried Asian neighbors turned to the United States, which was already stepping up its engagement with the region.
“We are settling into what all observers agree is a Sino-American security rivalry. The key is to manage and stabilize it so it does not become a conflict,” said Dan Blumenthal, a former China country director at the Pentagon and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
China says it’s not a threat and its military is purely for defense — which in its definition includes deterring Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory, from declaring formal independence.