{"id":9568,"date":"2011-07-07T22:07:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T22:07:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-07-07T22:07:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T22:07:54","slug":"Top-US-military-officer-heads-to-China","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=9568","title":{"rendered":"Top US military officer heads to China"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top US military officer departs for China today in a trip designed to forge a security dialogue with Beijing<\/strong>, officials said, but a naval exercise with US warships in the South China Sea threatens to aggravate tensions.<\/p>\n

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, sets off for a four-day tour “later this afternoon,” the Pentagon said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mullen<\/strong> — who in May hosted his Chinese counterpart, People’s Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde<\/strong> — “looks forward to continuing the engagement and dialogue” with Chen in Beijing, the statement said.<\/p>\n

The admiral’s trip coincides with a joint naval drill set for Saturday with the US, Japanese and Australian navies sailing in the South China Sea<\/strong>, most of which China claims as its maritime territory.<\/p>\n

Japan’s defense ministry announced the exercise and said today it will send the destroyer Shimakaze to join a US Navy destroyer<\/strong> and a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat for communications training and other drills off Brunei.<\/p>\n

China has objected to previous US naval exercises in the South China Sea<\/strong>, and tensions in the strategic and resource-rich area have mounted in recent weeks. The Philippines and Vietnam have expressed concern over what they call China’s increasingly assertive stance there.<\/p>\n

Mullen’s visit also comes after the United States and the Philippines carried out joint naval exercises<\/strong>, which Manila and Washington insisted were aimed at deepening military ties and not related to worries over China.<\/p>\n

China has insisted that it wants a peaceful resolution of territorial disagreements, but has warned Washington<\/strong> against involvement in the intensifying disputes.<\/p>\n

The trip to China is the first by a US chairman of the joint chiefs since 2007<\/strong>, officials said.<\/p>\n

The admiral was due to address students at Renmin University in Beijing, it said.<\/p>\n

As tensions in the South China Sea have mounted, the pace of China-US military exchanges have also picked up<\/strong>, with the former US defence secretary Robert Gates meeting Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie in Singapore in early June, following a January visit by Gates to Beijing.<\/p>\n

Gates warned last month that clashes could erupt in the South China Sea<\/strong> unless nations with conflicting territorial claims adopt a mechanism to settle their disputes peacefully.<\/p>\n

Source AFP<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top US military officer departs for China today in a trip designed to forge a security dialogue with Beijing,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"The top US military officer departs for China today in a trip designed to forge a security dialogue with Beijing,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":121,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}