BEIJING, March 23 — China’s recent test of an antisatellite weapon sent a confusing message to the world about its military intentions, but the United States and China are slowly building stronger military-to-military ties, the top-ranking United States military officer said Friday.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he urged his Chinese counterparts in meetings on Thursday and Friday to provide more information about the aims of their military buildup. He called the meetings “encouraging,” but said he did not get concrete answers.
“I used the example of the antisatellite test as how sometimes the international community can be confused, because it was a surprise that China did that, and it wasn’t clear what their intent was,” General Pace told reporters in Beijing.
In January, China fired a medium-range ballistic missile into space, destroying one of its own aging weather satellites. The test, which China said nothing about for more than a week, raised alarms in Washington that the Chinese military might seek the capacity to cripple the Pentagon’s satellite-dependent communications, missile guidance and navigation systems in the event of a future conflict.
The United States and the Soviet Union also destroyed satellites in space but stopped such tests in the 1980s, partly because the debris left in orbit posed threats to satellites and space vehicles.
China has maintained that it has only peaceful intentions in space and has declined to explain its missile test in any detail.
General Pace, who arrived Thursday for his first visit to China, discussed overall military relations between the two powers with Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan and Li Zhaoxing, the foreign minister, among other officials.
China put forward proposals to strengthen communication between the militaries, General Pace said. They included sending Chinese cadets to West Point, as well as participating in joint humanitarian and rescue-at-sea exercises.
General Pace said he agreed to study the proposals. He said the two sides were still discussing setting up a military hot line for communications during an emergency.
“The Chinese military understands as well as I do that the opportunity to pick up the phone and smooth out misunderstandings quickly is a very important part of relations,” General Pace said.
The exchange highlights a modest warming in relations between the militaries, which grew chilly in the early days of the Bush administration. Administration officials, including the defense secretary at the time, Donald H. Rumsfeld, initially said they did not see much value in extending a hand to the secretive Chinese military.
Tensions increased when an American spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter over the South China Sea in 2001, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the American plane to make an emergency landing at a Chinese air base.
Top officers from both countries have picked up the pace of visits in the past two years, but the Pentagon has pressed China, without obvious success, to explain its rapid military buildup. China raised its military spending by nearly 18 percent this year to $45 billion. The Pentagon claims the country’s real military spending is at least twice as much as the budgeted figure.
Chinese officials have expressed unease about America’s weapon sales to Taiwan, an independently governed island that China claims as its sovereign territory. The Pentagon has announced plans to sell more than 400 missiles to Taiwan to counter a large array of Chinese missiles aimed at the island.
General Pace played down concerns that tensions across the Taiwan Strait could lead to war. “I believe that there are good-faith efforts amongst all the leadership to prevent that,” he said.
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