Military trust, transparency still elude U.S. and China

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The eye-popping economic growth that has made China an attractive business partner has also funded an even faster expansion in its military spending that has raised eyebrows among U.S. policymakers.

China's military spending, even after two decades of double-digit growth, is only about one-sixth of U.S. outlays and American officials say they accept the huge country's legitimate need to update antiquated defenses.

But the Pentagon worries that it knows little about China's strategic intentions and sees the People's Liberation Army building capabilities that exceed Beijing's routine assertion that its military modernization is purely defensive in nature.

"When we see a military growing at that rate, we're interested in transparency and understanding the uses of that military," Rear Admiral Kevin Donegan, commander of the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group, said in Hong Kong.

President Barack Obama, who is to visit China later this month, inherited stable, multifaceted relations with Beijing from George W. Bush.

But military ties have lagged behind. China resumed military talks in June after freezing them, not for the first time, in 2008 to protest a $6.5 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and the United States is committed to defend.

"What I hope we can get through is this on-again, off-again aspect of our military-to-military relationship," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a conference on Wednesday.

INCIDENTS AT SEA

Just as Bush early in his tenure faced a showdown with Beijing over a mid-air collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter plane, Obama was in office less than two months when Chinese vessels confronted a U.S. surveillance ship in Asian waters in a reminder of potential dangers ahead.

"As the Chinese assume a greater military footprint in the Asia-Pacific region, they don't really have a great deal of understanding about how to operate alongside us," said Tai Ming Cheung, an expert on Chinese military technology at the University of California San Diego.

China rejects the U.S. assertion of its right to send surveillance ships 12 miles from the Chinese coast, insisting on a boundary of 200 miles.

China has shown new interest in military ties following talks in Beijing in June and an October U.S. tour by General Xu Caihou, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission.

"What you've seen over the last nine months is really a significant deepening of the interaction," a senior U.S. official told Reuters.

But historic mistrust and potentially explosive issues such as the status of Taiwan mean "the mil-mil side will continue to be the poor cousin in the relationship," Cheung said.

CHINA SEES ENCIRCLEMENT, SUFFOCATION