U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for
Congress

Shirley A. Kan
Specialist in Asian Security Affairs
August 6, 2009
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RL32496
CRS Report for Congress
P
repared for Members and Committees of Congress

U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress

Summary
This CRS Report, updated as warranted, discusses policy issues regarding military-to-military
(mil-to-mil) contacts with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and provides a record of major
contacts and crises since 1993. The United States suspended military contacts with China and
imposed sanctions on arms sales in response to the Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. In 1993, the
Clinton Administration re-engaged with the top PRC leadership, including China’s military, the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Renewed military exchanges with the PLA have not regained
the closeness reached in the 1980s, when U.S.-PRC strategic cooperation against the Soviet
Union included U.S. arms sales to China. Improvements and deteriorations in overall bilateral
relations have affected military contacts, which were close in 1997-1998 and 2000, but marred by
the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, mistaken NATO bombing of a PRC embassy in 1999, the EP-
3 aircraft collision crisis in 2001, and aggressive naval confrontations (including in March 2009).
In 2001, President Bush continued the policy of engagement with China, but the Pentagon
skeptically reviewed and cautiously resumed mil-to-mil contacts. Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, in 2002, resumed the Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) with the PLA (first held in
1997) and, in 2003, hosted General Cao Gangchuan, a Vice Chairman of the Central Military
Commission (CMC), and Defense Minister. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, visited China in January 2004, as the highest ranking U.S. military officer to do so since
November 2000. Rumsfeld visited China in 2005, the first visit by a defense secretary since
William Cohen’s visit in 2000. In 2006, a CMC Vice Chairman, General Guo Boxiong, made the
first visit to the United States by the highest ranking PLA commander after 1998.
Issues for the 111th Congress include whether the Obama Administration has complied with
legislation overseeing dealings with the PLA and has pursued a program of contacts with the PLA
that advances a prioritized list of U.S. security interests. Oversight legislation includes the
Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY1990-FY1991 (P.L. 101-246) and National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2000 (P.L. 106-65). Skeptics and proponents of military
exchanges with the PRC have debated whether the contacts have significant value for achieving
U.S. objectives and whether the contacts have contributed to the PLA’s warfighting capabilities
that might harm U.S. security interests. Some have argued about whether the value that U.S.
officials have placed on the contacts overly extends leverage to the PLA. U.S. interests in military
contacts with China include communication, conflict prevention, and crisis management;
transparency and reciprocity; tension reduction over Taiwan; weapons nonproliferation; strategic
nuclear and space talks; counterterrorism; and accounting for POW/MIAs.
U.S. defense officials have reported inadequate cooperation from the PLA, including denials of
port visits at Hong Kong and aid to U.S. Navy ships in distress (Thanksgiving 2007). Also, the
PLA has tried to use its suspensions of exchanges (the latest in October 2008) while blaming U.S.
“obstacles” (including arms sales to Taiwan, legal restrictions on contacts with the PLA, and the
Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on PRC Military Power). The PRC’s harassment of U.S.
surveillance ships (in March and May 2009) have shown the limits to the value of mil-to-mil talks
and PLA restraint. Still, at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in July 2009, President Obama
called for military contacts to diminish disputes with China. On June 25, the House passed H.R.
2647
, NDAA for FY 2010, that would change the requirement in P.L. 106-65 for that annual
report to shift the focus to security developments involving the PRC, add cooperation, and fold in
another requirement to report on mil-to-mil contacts. On July 23, the Senate passed its version
that did not include such changes and would require a Presidential report on Taiwan’s air force.
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U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress

Contents
Overview of U.S. Policy ............................................................................................................. 1
Cooperation in the Cold War ................................................................................................. 1
Suspensions after Tiananmen Crackdown.............................................................................. 1
Re-engagement ..................................................................................................................... 2
Re-evaluation........................................................................................................................ 2
Resumption........................................................................................................................... 3
Congressional Oversight ....................................................................................................... 4
Policy Issues for Congress .......................................................................................................... 6
Bush Administration ............................................................................................................. 6
Obama Administration .......................................................................................................... 7
Congressional Oversight ....................................................................................................... 7
Arms Sales...................................................................................................................... 7
Joint Defense Conversion Commission ........................................................................... 8
Past Reporting Requirement ............................................................................................ 9
Programs of Exchanges ................................................................................................... 9
Restrictions in the FY2000 NDAA.................................................................................. 9
Required Reports and Classification.............................................................................. 10
Procurement Prohibition in FY2006 NDAA .................................................................. 11
Leverage to Pursue U.S. Security Objectives ....................................................................... 12
Objectives..................................................................................................................... 12
Debate .......................................................................................................................... 13
Perspectives .................................................................................................................. 16
U.S. Security Interests......................................................................................................... 17
Communication, Conflict Avoidance, and Crisis Management ....................................... 17
Transparency, Reciprocity, and Information-Exchange .................................................. 20
Tension Reduction over Taiwan..................................................................................... 22
Weapons Nonproliferation............................................................................................. 24
Strategic Nuclear and Space Talks ................................................................................. 25
Counterterrorism........................................................................................................... 26
Accounting for POW/MIAs .......................................................................................... 27

Figures
Figure 1. Map - China’s Military Regions.................................................................................... 6

Tables
Table 1. The PLA’s High Command ............................................................................................ 5
Table 2. Summary of Senior-Level Military Visits Since 1994 ..................................................... 5

Appendixes
Appendix. Major Military Contacts Since 1993 ......................................................................... 30
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Contacts
Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 54
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... 54

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Overview of U.S. Policy
U.S. leaders have applied military contacts as one tool and point of leverage in the broader policy
toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The first part of this CRS Report discusses policy
issues regarding such military-to-military (mil-to-mil) contacts. The second part provides a record
of such contacts since 1993, when the United States resumed exchanges after suspending them in
response to the Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. Congress has exercised important oversight of
the military relationship with China.
Cooperation in the Cold War
Since the mid-1970s, even before the normalization of relations with Beijing, the debate over
policy toward the PRC has examined how military ties might advance U.S. security interests,
beginning with the imperatives of the Cold War.1 In January 1980, Secretary of Defense Harold
Brown visited China and laid the groundwork for a relationship with the PRC’s military, the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), intended to consist of strategic dialogue, reciprocal exchanges
in functional areas, and arms sales. Furthermore, U.S. policy changed in 1981 to remove the ban
on arms sales to China. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger visited Beijing in September
1983. In 1984, U.S. policymakers worked to advance discussions on military technological
cooperation with China.2 Between 1985 and 1987, the United States agreed to four programs of
Foreign Military Sales (FMS): modernization of artillery ammunition production facilities;
modernization of avionics in F-8 fighters; sale of four Mark-46 anti-submarine torpedoes; and
sale of four AN/TPQ-37 artillery-locating radars.3
Suspensions after Tiananmen Crackdown
The United States suspended mil-to-mil contacts and arms sales in response to the Tiananmen
Crackdown in June 1989. (Although the killing of peaceful demonstrators took place beyond just
Tiananmen Square in the capital of Beijing on June 4, 1989, the crackdown is commonly called
the Tiananmen Crackdown in reference to the square that was the focal point of the nation-wide
pro-democracy movement.) Approved in February 1990, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act
for FY1990-FY1991 (P.L. 101-246) enacted into law sanctions imposed on arms sales and other
cooperation, while allowing for waivers in the U.S. national interest. In April 1990, China
canceled the program (called “Peace Pearl”) to upgrade the avionics of the F-8 fighters.4 In

1 Michael Pillsbury, “U.S.-Chinese Military Ties?”, Foreign Policy, Fall 1975; Leslie Gelb, “Arms Sales,” Foreign
Policy
, Winter 1976-77; Michael Pillsbury, “Future Sino-American Security Ties: The View from Tokyo, Moscow, and
Peking,” International Security, Spring 1977; and Philip Taubman, “U.S. and China Forging Close Ties; Critics Fear
That Pace is Too Swift,” New York Times, December 8, 1980.
2 Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, Testimony before the House
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, “Defense Relations with the People’s Republic of China,”
June 5, 1984.
3 Department of State and Defense Security Assistance Agency, “Congressional Presentation for Security Assistance,
Fiscal Year 1992.”
4 Jane’s Defense Weekly, May 26, 1990.
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December 1992, President Bush decided to close out the four cases of suspended FMS programs,
returning PRC equipment, reimbursing unused funds, and delivering sold items without support.5
Re-engagement
In the fall of 1993, the Clinton Administration began to re-engage the PRC leadership up to the
highest level and across the board, including the PLA. However, results were limited and the
military relationship did not regain the closeness reached in the 1980s, when the United States
and China cooperated strategically against the Soviet Union and such cooperation included arms
sales to the PLA. Improvements and deteriorations in overall bilateral relations affected mil-to-
mil contacts, which had close ties in 1997-1998 and 2000, but were marred by the 1995-1996
Taiwan Strait crisis, mistaken NATO bombing of the PRC embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, and the
EP-3 aircraft collision crisis in 2001.
Re-evaluation
In 2001, the George W. Bush Administration continued the policy of engagement with the PRC,
while the Pentagon has skeptically reviewed and cautiously resumed a program of mil-to-mil
exchanges. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reviewed the mil-to-mil contacts to assess the
effectiveness of the exchanges in meeting U.S. objectives of reciprocity and transparency. Soon
after the review began, on April 1, 2001, a PLA Navy F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3
reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea.6 Upon surviving the collision, the EP-3’s crew
made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan island. The PLA detained the 24 U.S. Navy
personnel for 11 days. Instead of acknowledging that the PLA had started aggressive interceptions
of U.S. reconnaissance flights in December 2000 and apologizing for the accident, top PRC ruler
Jiang Zemin demanded an apology and compensation from the United States. Rumsfeld limited
mil-to-mil contacts after the crisis, subject to case-by-case approval, after the White House
objected to a suspension of contacts with the PLA as outlined in an April 30 Defense Department
memo. Rumsfeld told reporters on May 8, 2001, that he decided against visits to China by U.S.
ships or aircraft and against social contacts, because “it really wasn’t business as usual.” Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz reported to Congress on June 8, 2001, that mil-to-mil
exchanges for 2001 remained under review by Secretary Rumsfeld and exchanges with the PLA
would be conducted “selectively and on a case-by-case basis.” The United States did not transport
the damaged EP-3 out of China until July 3, 2001.
The Bush Administration hosted PRC Vice President Hu Jintao in Washington in the spring of
2002 (with an honor cordon at the Pentagon) and President Jiang Zemin in Crawford, Texas, in
October 2002. Afterwards, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in late 2002, resumed the Defense
Consultative Talks (DCT) with the PLA (first held in 1997) and, in 2003, hosted General Cao
Gangchuan, a Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Defense Minister.
(The CMC under the Communist Party of China (CPC) commands the PLA. The Ministry of
Defense and its titles are used in contacts with foreign militaries.) General Richard Myers
(USAF), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China in January 2004, as the highest

5 Department of State, “Presidential Decision on Military Sales to China,” December 22, 1992.
6 CRS Report RL30946, China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident of April 2001: Assessments and Policy Implications, by
Shirley A. Kan et al.
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ranking U.S. military officer to do so since November 2000. (see Table 1 on the PLA’s high
command and the summary of senior-level military visits.)
Visiting Beijing in January 2004, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with PRC
leaders, including General Cao Gangchuan. Armitage acknowledged that “the military-to-military
relationship had gotten off to a rocky start,” but noted that the relationship had improved so that
“it’s come pretty much full cycle.” He said that “we’re getting back on track with the military-to-
military relationship.”7
Resumption
Still, mil-to-mil interactions remained “exceedingly limited,” according to the Commander of the
Pacific Command, Admiral William Fallon, who visited China to advance mil-to-mil contacts in
September 2005. He discussed building relationships at higher and lower ranks, cooperation in
responding to natural disasters and controlling avian flu, and reducing tensions. Fallon also said
that he would seek to enhance military-to-military contacts with China and invite PLA observers
to U.S. military exercises, an issue of dispute in Washington.8 In October 2005, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld visited China, the first visit by a defense secretary since William Cohen’s visit
in 2000. After Rumsfeld’s visit, which was long sought by the PLA for the perceived full
resumption of the military relationship, General Guo Boxiong, a CMC Vice Chairman and the
PLA’s highest ranking officer visited the United States in July 2006, the first such visit since
General Zhang Wannian’s visit in 1998.
At a news conference on March 7, 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he did not see
China as a “strategic adversary” of the United States, but “a partner in some respects” and a
“competitor in other respects.” Gates stressed the importance of engaging the PRC “on all facets
of our relationship as a way of building mutual confidence.” Nonetheless, U.S. officials expressed
concerns about inadequate “transparency” from the PLA, most notably when it tested an anti-
satellite (ASAT) weapon in January 2007. At a news conference in China on March 23, 2007, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, said the primary concern for
the bilateral relationship is “miscalculation and misunderstanding based on misinformation.”
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless testified to the House Armed Services
Committee on June 13, 2007, that “in the absence of adequate explanation for capabilities which
are growing dynamically, both in terms of pace and scope, we are put in the position of having to
assume the most dangerous intent a capability offers.” He noted a lack of response from the PLA
about a U.S. offer in 2006 to talk about strategic nuclear weapons.
In November 2007, despite various unresolved issues, Secretary Gates visited China, and the PLA
agreed to a long-sought U.S. goal of a “hotline.” Later in the month, despite a number of senior
U.S. visits to China (particularly by U.S. Navy Admirals and Secretary Gates) to promote the mil-
to-mil relationship, the PRC denied port calls at Hong Kong for U.S. Navy minesweepers in
distress and for the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk for the Thanksgiving holiday and family

7 Department of State, “Deputy Secretary of State Richard ‘s Media Round Table,” Beijing, China, January 30, 2004.
8 U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. William J. Fallon, press conference, Hong Kong, September 11, 2005; and author’s
discussions with Pentagon officials.
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reunions, according to the PACOM Commander and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admirals
Timothy Keating and Gary Roughead. The Pentagon protested to the PLA.9
Congressional Oversight
Congress has exercised oversight of various aspects of military exchanges with China. Issues for
Congress include whether the Administration has complied with legislation overseeing dealings
with the PLA and has determined a program of contacts with the PLA that advances, and does not
harm, U.S. security interests. Section 902 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY1990-
FY1991 (P.L. 101-246) prohibits arms sales to China, among other stipulations, in response to the
Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. Section 1201 of the National Defense Authorization Act for
FY2000 (P.L. 106-65) restricts “inappropriate exposure” of the PLA to certain operational areas
and requires annual reports on contacts with the PLA. Section 1211 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for FY2006 (P.L. 109-163) prohibits procurement from any “Communist
Chinese military company” for goods and services on the Munitions List, with exceptions for
U.S. military ship or aircraft visits to the PRC, testing, and intelligence-collection; as well as
waiver authority for the Secretary of Defense. (See detailed discussion below.)
Select Abbreviations
AMS
Academy of Military Science
CMC
Central Military Commission
COSTIND
Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense
CPC
Communist Party of China
DCT
Defense Consultative Talks
DPMO
Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office
GAD
General Armament Department
GLD
General Logistics Department
GPD
General Political Department
GSD
General Staff Department
MR
Military Region
MMCA
Military Maritime Consultative Agreement
NDU
National Defense University
PACOM
Pacific Command
PLAAF
People’s Liberation Army Air Force
PLAN
People’s Liberation Army Navy


9 “Navy: China ‘Not Helpful’ on Thanksgiving,” Associated Press, November 28, 2007; White House press briefing,
November 28, 2007; Washington Post, November 29, 2007.
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Table 1. The PLA’s High Command
Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CPC
Chairman

Hu Jintao
CPC General Secretary; PRC President
Vice Chm
General
Guo Boxiong
Politburo Member
Vice Chm
General
Xu Caihou
Politburo Member
Member
General
Liang Guanglie
Defense Minister
Member
General
Chen Bingde
Chief of General Staff (GSD)
Member
General
Li Jinai
Director of GPD
Member
General
Liao Xilong
Director of GLD
Member
General
Chang Wanquan
Director of GAD
Member
General
Jing Zhiyuan
Commander of the 2nd Artillery
Member
Admiral
Wu Shengli
Commander of the Navy
Member
General
Xu Qiliang
Commander of the Air Force
Notes: Jiang Zemin was instal ed as the previous chairman of the CPC’s CMC in November 1989 and remained in
this position after handing other positions as CPC general secretary and PRC president to Hu Jintao. Jiang had ruled
as the general secretary of the CPC from June 1989 until November 2002, when he stepped down at the 16th CPC
Congress in favor of Hu Jintao. Jiang concurrently represented the PRC as president from March 1993 until March
2003, when he stepped down at the 10th National People’s Congress. At the 4th plenum of the 16th Central
Committee in September 2004, Jiang resigned as CMC chairman, allowing Hu to complete the transition of power. At
the same time, General Xu Caihou rose from a CMC member to a vice chairman, and the commanders of the PLA
Air Force, Navy, and 2nd Artillery rose to be CMC members for the first time in the PLA’s history, reflecting new
appreciation and action to integrate the PLA as a joint force.

Table 2. Summary of Senior-Level Military Visits Since 1994
Year
Defense Secretary/ Minister
Highest Ranking Officer
Defense Consultative Talks
1994 William Perry


1995


1996 Chi
Haotian


1997
John
Shalikashvili
1st DCT
1998 William Cohen
Zhang Wannian
2nd DCT
1999


2000 William Cohen
Henry Shelton
3rd DCT; 4th DCT
2001


2002

5th DCT
2003 Cao
Gangchuan


2004
Richard
Myers
6th DCT
2005 Donald
Rumsfeld

7th DCT
2006
Guo
Boxiong
8th DCT
2007
Robert Gates
Peter Pace
9th DCT
2008

2009
10th DCT

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Figure 1. Map - China’s Military Regions


Policy Issues for Congress
Skepticism in the United States about the value of military exchanges with China has increased
with the experiences in the 1990s; crises like the PLA’s missile exercises targeting Taiwan in
1995-1996, mistaken bombing of the PRC embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the F-8/EP-3
collision crisis of 2001; and changes in the U.S. policy approach.
Bush Administration
In 2002, President Bush decided to pursue a closer relationship with the PRC. As the Defense
Department gradually resumed the mil-to-mil relationship in that context, policy issues for
Congress included whether the Administration complied with legislation and has used leverage
effectively in its contacts with the PLA to advance a prioritized list of U.S. security interests,
while balancing security concerns about the PLA’s warfighting capabilities.
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Obama Administration
President Barack Obama met with PRC top ruler Hu Jintao in London on April 1, 2009, and they
agreed to improve the mil-to-mil relationship. Speaking at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue
(S&ED) in Washington on July 27, 2009, President Obama included a specific call for increasing
military contacts to diminish disputes with China. Although the Secretaries of State and Treasury
chaired the S&ED, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Commander of the Pacific
Command represented the Defense Department. Pressed by the U.S. side to participate, the PLA
reluctantly dispatched Rear Admiral Guan Youfei, Deputy Director of the Foreign Affairs Office,
in charge of mil-to-mil with the United States. The two sides reiterated again that they “resumed”
the military relationship and agreed that CMC Vice Chairman, General Xu Caihou, will visit.
Congressional Oversight
One issue for Congress in examining the military relationship with the PRC is the role of
Congress, including the extent of congressional oversight of the Administration’s policy.
Congress could, as it has in the past, consider options to:
• Host PLA delegations on Capitol Hill or meet them at other venues
• Engage with the PLA as an aspect of visits by Codels to China
• Receive briefings by the Administration before and/or after military visits
• Hold hearings on related issues
• Investigate or oversee investigations of prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action
(POW/MIA) cases (once under the specialized jurisdiction of the Senate Select
Committee on POW/MIA Affairs)
• Write letters to Administration officials to express congressional concerns
• Require reports from the Pentagon, particularly in unclassified form
• Review interactions at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies of the Pacific
Command (PACOM) in Hawaii
• Fund or prohibit funding for certain commissions or activities
• Pass legislation on sanctions and exchanges with the PLA
• Assess the Administration’s adherence to laws on sanctions, contacts, and
reporting requirements
• Obtain and review the Department of Defense (DOD)’s plan for upcoming mil-
to-mil contacts, particularly proposed programs already discussed with the PLA.
Arms Sales
Congress has oversight of sanctions imposed after the Tiananmen Crackdown that were enacted
in Section 902 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY1990 and FY1991 (P.L. 101-
246
). The sanctions continue to prohibit the issuance of licenses to export Munitions List items to
China, including helicopters and helicopter parts, as well as crime control equipment. The
President has waiver authority.
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Related to views of the U.S. ban on arms sales is the European arms embargo. In January 2004,
the European Union (EU) decided to reconsider whether to lift its embargo on arms sales to
China. On January 28, 2004, a State Department spokesman acknowledged that the United States
has held “senior-level” discussions with France and other countries in the EU about the issue of
whether to lift the embargo on arms sales to China. He said, “certainly for the United States, our
statutes and regulations prohibit sales of defense items to China. We believe that others should
maintain their current arms embargoes as well. We believe that the U.S. and European
prohibitions on arms sales are complementary, were imposed for the same reasons, specifically
serious human rights abuses, and that those reasons remain valid today.”10 At a hearing of the
House International Relations Committee on February 11, 2004, Representative Steve Chabot
asked Secretary of State Colin Powell about the EU’s reconsideration of the arms embargo
against China, as supported by France. Powell responded that he raised this issue with the foreign
ministers of France, Ireland, United Kingdom, and Germany, and expressed opposition to a
change in the EU’s policy at this time in light of the PLA’s missiles arrayed against Taiwan, the
referendums on sensitive political issues then planned in Taiwan, and China’s human rights
conditions.11
Joint Defense Conversion Commission
In China in October 1994, Secretary of Defense William Perry and PLA General Ding Henggao,
Director of the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense
(COSTIND),12 set up the U.S.-China Joint Defense Conversion Commission. Its stated goal was
to facilitate economic cooperation and technical exchanges and cooperation in the area of defense
conversion.
However, on June 1, 1995, the House National Security Committee issued H.Rept. 104-131 (for
the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1996) and expressed concerns that this
commission led to U.S. assistance to PRC firms with direct ties to the PLA and possible subsidies
to the PLA. The committee inserted a section to prohibit the use of DOD funds for activities
associated with the commission. The Senate’s bill had no similar language. On January 22, 1996,
conferees reported in Conference Report 104-450 that they agreed to a provision (Section 1343 in
P.L. 104-106) to require the Secretary of Defense to submit semi-annual reports on the
commission. They also noted that continued U.S.-PRC security dialogue “can promote stability in
the region and help protect American interests and the interests of America’s Asian allies.”
Nonetheless, they warned that Congress intends to examine whether that dialogue has produced
“tangible results” in human rights, transparency in military spending and doctrine, missile and
nuclear nonproliferation, and other important U.S. security interests. Then, in the National
Defense Authorization Act for FY1997 (P.L. 104-201), enacted in September 23, 1996, Congress
banned DOD from using any funds for any activity associated with the commission until 15 days
after the first semi-annual report is received by Congress. In light of this controversy, Secretary
Perry terminated the commission and informed Congress in a letter dated July 18, 1996.

10 Department of State, press briefing by Richard Boucher, spokesman, January 28, 2004.
11 See CRS Report RL32870, European Union’s Arms Embargo on China: Implications and Options for U.S. Policy,
by Kristin Archick, Richard F. Grimmett, and Shirley A. Kan.
12 CRS Report 96-889, China: Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND) and
Defense Industries
, by Shirley A. Kan.
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Past Reporting Requirement
Also in 1996, the House National Security Committee issued H.Rept. 104-563 (for the National
Defense Authorization Act of FY1997) that sought a “full accounting and detailed presentation”
of all DOD interaction with the PRC government and PLA, including technology-sharing,
conducted during 1994-1996 and proposed for 1997-1998, and required a classified and
unclassified report by February 1, 1997. DOD submitted the unclassified report on February 21,
1997, and did not submit a classified version, saying that the unclassified report was
comprehensive and that no contacts covered in the report included the release of classified
material or technology sharing.
Programs of Exchanges
Certain Members of Congress have written to the Secretary of Defense to express concerns that
mil-to-mil exchanges have not adequately benefitted U.S. interests. In early 1999, under the
Clinton Administration, the Washington Times disclosed the existence of a “Gameplan for 1999
U.S.-Sino Defense Exchanges,” and Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon confirmed that an
exchange program had been under way for years.13 Representative Dana Rohrabacher wrote a
letter to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, saying that “after reviewing the ‘Game Plan,’ it
appears evident that a number of events involving PLA logistics, acquisitions, quartermaster and
chemical corps representatives may benefit PLA modernization to the detriment of our allies in
the Pacific region and, ultimately, the lives of own service members.” He requested a detailed
written description of various exchanges.14
In December 2001, under the Bush Administration, Senator Bob Smith and Representative Dana
Rohrabacher wrote to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, expressing concerns about
renewed military contacts with the PRC. They contended that military exchanges failed to reduce
tensions (evident in the EP-3 crisis), lacked reciprocity, and provided militarily-useful
information to the PLA. They charged that the Clinton Administration “largely ignored” the spirit
and intent of legislation governing military exchanges with the PLA, including a “violation” of
the law by allowing the PLA to visit the Joint Forces Command in August 2000, and, as initiators
of the legislation, they “reminded” Rumsfeld of the congressional restrictions.15
Restrictions in the FY2000 NDAA
Enacted on October 5, 1999, the FY2000 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) set
parameters to contacts with the PLA. Section 1201 of the NDAA for FY2000 (P.L. 106-65)
prohibits the Secretary of Defense from authorizing any mil-to-mil contact with the PLA if that
contact would “create a national security risk due to an inappropriate exposure” of the PLA to any
of the following 12 operational areas (with exceptions granted to any search and rescue or
humanitarian operation or exercise):
• Force projection operations
• Nuclear operations

13 Bill Gertz, “Military Exchanges with Beijing Raises Security Concerns,” Washington Times, February 19, 1999.
14 Dana Rohrabacher, letters to William Cohen, March 1, 1999 and March 18, 1999.
15 Bob Smith and Dana Rohrabacher, letter to Donald Rumsfeld, December 17, 2001.
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• Advanced combined-arms and joint combat operations
• Advanced logistical operations
• Chemical and biological defense and other capabilities related to weapons of
mass destruction
• Surveillance and reconnaissance operations
• Joint warfighting experiments and other activities related to transformations in
warfare
• Military space operations
• Other advanced capabilities of the Armed Forces
• Arms sales or military-related technology transfers
• Release of classified or restricted information
• Access to a DOD laboratory.
The Secretary of Defense—rather than an authority in Congress or outside of the Defense
Department—is also required to submit an annual written certification by December 31 of each
year as to whether any military contact with China that the Secretary of Defense authorized in
that year was a “violation” of the restrictions.
At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2006, Admiral Fallon,
Commander of the Pacific Command (PACOM), raised with Representative Victor Snyder the
issue of whether to modify this legislation to relax restrictions on contacts with the PLA.16
Skeptics said that it was not necessary to change or lift the law to enhance exchanges, while the
law contains prudent parameters that do not ban all contacts. A third option would be for
Congress or the Secretary of Defense to clarify what type of mil-to-mil contact with the PLA
would “create a national security risk due to an inappropriate exposure.” At a hearing of the
House Armed Services Committee on June 13, 2007, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard
Lawless contended that limitations in the law should not change. The PLA has objected to the
U.S. law, claiming that it restricts the mil-to-mil relationship, a claim denied by the U.S. side.
Required Reports and Classification
Section 1201(f) of the NDAA for FY2000 (P.L. 106-65) required an unclassified report by March
31, 2000, on past military-to-military contacts with the PRC. The Office of the Secretary of
Defense submitted this report in January 2001.
Section 1201(e) required an annual report, by March 31 of each year starting in 2001, from the
Secretary of Defense on the Secretary’s assessment of the state of mil-to-mil exchanges and
contacts with the PLA, including past contacts, planned contacts, the benefits that the PLA
expects to gain, the benefits that DOD expects to gain, and the role of such contacts for the larger
security relationship with the PRC. The law did not specify whether the report shall be

16 House Armed Services Committee, hearing on the FY2007 Budget for PACOM, March 9, 2006. Adm. Fallon also
discussed a consideration of modifying the law in an interview: Tony Capaccio, “Fallon Wants to Jumpstart Military
Contacts between U.S., China,” Bloomberg, March 13, 2006.
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unclassified and/or classified. In the report submitted in January 2001 (on past mil-to-mil
exchanges), the Pentagon stated that “as a matter of policy, all exchange activities are conducted
at the unclassified level. Thus, there is no data included on the section addressing PLA access to
classified data as a result of exchange activities.” On June 8, 2001, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz signed and submitted an unclassified report on the mil-to-mil exchanges in 2000
under the Clinton Administration and did not provide a schedule of activities for 2001, saying that
the 2001 program was under review by the Secretary of Defense.
However, concerning contacts with the PLA under the Bush Administration, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld submitted reports on military exchanges with China in May 2002, May 2003,
and May 2005 (for 2003 and 2004) that were classified “Confidential” and not made public.17 In
July 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld submitted an unclassified report on contacts in
2005.18 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates submitted an unclassified report in June 2007 for
2006.19 In March 2008, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England submitted an unclassified
report to Congress for 2007.20
Under President Obama, Defense Secretary Gates submitted an unclassified report to Congress on
March 31, 2009.21 On June 25, 2009, the House passed H.R. 2647, NDAA for FY 2010, that
would change the requirement in Section 1202(a) of P.L. 106-65 for an annual report on PRC
military power to shift the focus to security developments involving the PRC, add cooperation,
and fold in the separate requirement to report on mil-to-mil contacts (in Section 1201 of P.L. 106-
65). On July 23, the Senate passed its version that did not include such changes and would
require a Presidential report on Taiwan’s air force.
Procurement Prohibition in FY2006 NDAA
Section 1211 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2006 (signed into law as P.L. 109-
163 on January 6, 2006) prohibits procurement from any “Communist Chinese military
company” for goods and services on the Munitions List, with exceptions for U.S. military ship or
aircraft visits to the PRC, testing, and intelligence-collection; as well as waiver authority for the
Secretary of Defense. Original language reported by the House Armed Services Committee in
H.R. 1815 on May 20, 2005, would have prohibited the Secretary of Defense from any
procurement of goods or services from any such company. S. 1042 did not have similar language.
During conference, the Senate receded after limiting the ban to goods and services on the U.S.
Munitions List; providing for exceptions for procurement in connection with U.S. military ship or
aircraft visits, testing, and intelligence-collection; and authorizing waivers. The House passed the
conference report (H.Rept. 109-360) on December 19, 2005, and the Senate agreed to it on
December 21, 2005.

17 Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, “Inside the Ring,” Washington Times, May 17, 2002; author’s discussions with
the Defense Department and Senate Armed Services Committee.
18 Secretary of Defense, “Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 1201(e) of the FY2000 National Defense
Authorization Act (P.L. 106-65),” July 19, 2006.
19 Secretary of Defense, “Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 1201(e) of the FY2000 National Defense
Authorization Act (P.L. 106-65),” June 22, 2007.
20 Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 1201(e) of the FY 2000 National Defense
Authorization Act (P.L. 106-65),” March 31, 2008.
21 Robert Gates, “Annual Report on the Current State of U.S. Military-to-Military Exchanges and Contacts with the
People’s Liberation Army, 2008,” March 31, 2009.
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Leverage to Pursue U.S. Security Objectives
Objectives
At different times, under the Clinton and Bush Administrations, DOD has pursued exchanges
with the PLA to various degrees of closeness as part of the policy of engagement in the bilateral
relationship with China. The record of the mil-to-mil contacts in over ten years can be used to
evaluate the extent to which those contacts provided tangible benefits to advance U.S. security
goals.
The Pentagon’s last East Asia strategy report issued by Secretary of Defense Cohen in November
1998 placed “comprehensive engagement” with China in third place among nine components of
the U.S. strategy. It said that U.S.-PRC dialogue was “critical” to ensure understanding of each
other’s regional security interests, reduce misperceptions, increase understanding of PRC security
concerns, and build confidence to “avoid military accidents and miscalculations.” While calling
the strategic non-targeting agreement announced at the summit in June 1998 a “symbolic” action,
it asserted that the action “reassured both sides and reaffirmed our constructive relationship.” The
report further pointed to the presidential hotline set up in May 1998, Military Maritime
Consultative Agreement (MMCA), and Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) as achievements in
engagement with the PLA.22
Under the Bush Administration, in a report to Congress on June 8, 2001, required by the NDAA
for FY2000, P.L. 106-65, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz wrote that military
exchanges in 2000 sought to:
• foster an environment conducive to frank, open discussion
• complement the broader effort to engage the PRC
• reduce the likelihood of miscalculations regarding cross-strait issues.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told reporters on May 31, 2002, that “we believe
that the contact between American military personnel and Chinese military personnel can reduce
misunderstandings on both sides and can help build a better basis for cooperation when
opportunities arise. So we’d like to enhance those opportunities for interaction but we believe that
to be successful we have to have principles of transparency and reciprocity. It’s very important
that there’s mutual benefit to both sides.... The more each country knows about what the other one
is doing, the less danger is there, I believe, of misunderstanding and confrontation.”23
In agreeing to discuss a resumption of mil-to-mil contacts, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld told reporters on June 21, 2002, that Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman
would talk to the PLA about the principles of transparency, reciprocity, and consistency for mil-
to-mil contacts that Rumsfeld stressed to Vice President Hu Jintao at the Pentagon in May 2002.
After the fifth DCT in December 2002, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith said
that if contacts are structured property, “they will serve our interests, they will serve our common
interests. And the principal interest is in reducing the risks of mistake, miscalculation, and

22 Secretary of Defense, The United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region, 1998.
23 Department of Defense, “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz’s Interview with Phoenix Television,” May 31, 2002.
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misunderstanding. If these military-to-military exchanges actually lead to our gaining insights
into Chinese thinking and policies and capabilities and the like, and they can gain insights into
ours, then it doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily agree on everything, but it at least means that as
we’re making our policies, we’re making them on the basis of accurate information.”24
In March 2008, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England defined these principal U.S.
objectives in the annual report to Congress on contacts with the PLA:
• support the President’s overall policy goals regarding China;
• prevent conflict by clearly communicating U.S. resolve to maintain peace and
stability in the Asia-Pacific region;
• lower the risk of miscalculation between the two militaries;
• increase U.S. understanding of China’s military capabilities and intentions;
• encourage China to adopt greater openness and transparency in its military
capabilities and intentions;
• promote stable U.S.-China relations;
• increase mutual understanding between U.S. and PLA officers;
• encourage China to play a constructive and peaceful role in the Asia-Pacific
region; to act as a partner in addressing common security challenges; and to
emerge as a responsible stakeholder in the world.
Debate
U.S. security objectives in mil-to-mil contacts with China have included gaining insights about
the PLA’s capabilities and concepts; deterrence against a PLA use of force or coercion against
Taiwan or U.S. allies; reduction in tensions in the Taiwan Strait; strategic arms control; weapons
nonproliferation in countries such as like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan; closer engagement
with top PRC leaders; freedom of navigation and flight; preventing dangers to U.S. military
personnel operating in proximity to the PLA; minimizing misperceptions and miscalculations;
and accounting for American POW/MIAs.
Skeptics of U.S.-PRC mil-to-mil contacts say they have had little value for achieving these U.S.
objectives. Instead that they contend that the contacts served to inform the PLA as it builds its
warfighting capability against Taiwan and the United States, which it views as a potential
adversary, and seemed to reward belligerence. They oppose rehabilitation of PLA officers
involved in the Tiananmen Crackdown. They question whether the PLA has shown transparency
and reciprocated with equivalent or substantive access, and urge greater attention to U.S. allies
over China. From this perspective, the ups and downs in the military relationship reflect its use as
a tool in the bilateral political relationship, in which the PRC at times had leverage over the
United States. Thus, they contend, a realistic appraisal of the nature of the PLA threat would call
for caution in military contacts with China, perhaps limiting them to exchanges such as strategic

24 Department of Defense, “Under Secretary Feith’s Media Roundtable on U.S.-China Defense Consultative Talks,”
December 9, 2002.
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talks and senior-level policy dialogues, rather than operational areas that involve military
capabilities.
A former U.S. Army Attache in Beijing wrote in 1999 that under the Clinton Administration,
military-to-military contacts allowed PLA officers “broad access” to U.S. warships, exercises,
and even military manuals. He argued that “many of the military contacts between the United
States and China over the years helped the PLA attain its goals [in military modernization].” He
called for limiting exchanges to strategic dialogue on weapons proliferation, Taiwan, the Korean
peninsula, freedom of navigation, missile defense, etc. He urged policymakers not to “improve
the PLA’s capability to wage war against Taiwan or U.S. friends and allies, its ability to project
force, or its ability to repress the Chinese people.”25 He also testified to Congress in 2000 that the
PLA conceals its capabilities in exchanges with the United States. For example, he said, the PLA
invited General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to see the capabilities of
the 15th Airborne Army (in May 1997), but it showed him a highly scripted routine. Furthermore,
the PLA allowed Secretary of Defense Cohen to visit an Air Defense Command Center (in
January 1998), but it was “a hollow shell of a local headquarters; it was not the equivalent of
America’s National Command Center” that was shown to PRC leaders.26
In 2000, Randy Schriver, a former official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, discussed
lessons learned in conducting military exchanges during the Clinton Administration and argued
for limiting such exchanges. Schriver assessed senior-level talks as exchanges of talking points
rather than real dialogue, but nonetheless helpful. He considered the MMCA a successful
confidence-building measure (not knowing the EP-3 aircraft collision crisis would occur less than
one year later in April 2001). He also said it was positive to have PLA participation in multilateral
fora and to expose younger PLA officers to American society. However, Schriver said that the
United States “failed miserably” in gaining a window on the PLA’s modernization, gaining
neither access as expected nor reciprocity; failed to shape China’s behavior while allowing China
to shape the behavior of some American “ardent suitors”; and failed to deter the PLA’s aggression
while whetting the PLA’s appetite in planning against a potential American adversary. He
disclosed that the Pentagon needed to exert control over the Pacific Command’s contacts with the
PLA, with the Secretary of Defense issuing a memo to set guidelines. He also called for
continuing consultations with Congress.27
Warning of modest expectations for military ties and that such exchanges often have been
suspended to signal messages or retaliate against a perceived wrong action, former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense Kurt Campbell contended in late 2005 that security ties can only
follow, not lead, the overall bilateral relationship.28 After serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of

25 Larry Wortzel, “Why Caution is Needed in Military Contacts with China,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder,
December 2, 1999.
26 Larry Wortzel, Director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, testimony on “China’s Strategic
Intentions and Goals” before the House Armed Services Committee, June 21, 2000.
27 Randy Schriver, former Country Director for China in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Clinton
Administration, and later Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Bush
Administration, discussed military contacts with China at an event at the Heritage Foundation on July 27, 2000. See
Stephen Yates, Al Santoli, Randy Schriver, and Larry Wortzel, “The Proper Scope, Purpose, and Utility of U.S.
Relations with China’s Military,” Heritage Lectures, October 10, 2000.
28 Kurt Campbell (Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and the Pacific in 1995-2000) and Richard
Weitz, “The Limits of U.S.-China Military Cooperation: Lessons From 1995-1999,” Washington Quarterly, Winter
2005-2006.
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State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Bush Administration, Randy Schriver observed in
2007 that military engagement with China has continued to pursue the “same modest, limited
agenda that has been in place for close to 20 years,” despite a high-level visit by Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates in November 2007.29
Proponents of military exchanges with the PRC point out that contacts with the PLA cannot be
expected to equal contacts with allies in transparency, reciprocity, and consistency. They argue
that the mil-to-mil contacts nonetheless promote U.S. interests and allow the U.S. military to gain
insights into the PLA, including its top leadership, that no other bilateral contacts provide. U.S.
military attaches, led by the Defense Attache at the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral, have
contacts at levels lower than the top PLA leaders and are subject to strict surveillance in China. In
addition to chances for open intelligence collection, the military relationship can minimize
miscalculations and misperceptions, and foster pro-U.S. leanings and understanding, particularly
among younger officers who might lead in the future. Proponents caution against treating China
as if it is already an enemy, since the United States seeks China’s cooperation on international
security issues. There might be benefits in cooperation in military medicine to prevent pandemics
of diseases, like avian flu. During the epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in
2003, it was a PLA doctor, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who revealed the PRC leadership’s coverup of
SARS cases at premier PLA hospitals.30 Since the early 1990s, Congress and the Defense
Department have viewed China as the key to getting information to resolve the cases of
POW/MIAs from the Korean War.
Citing several exchanges in 1998 (Commander of the Pacific Command’s visit that included the
first foreign look at the 47th Group Army, a U.S. Navy ship visit to Shanghai, and naval
consultative talks at Naval Base Coronado), the U.S. Naval Attache in Beijing wrote that “the
process of mutual consultation, openness, and sharing of concerns and information needed to
preclude future misunderstandings and to build mutual beneficial relations is taking place
between the U.S. and China’s armed forces, especially in the military maritime domain.” He
stressed that “the importance of progress in this particular area of the Sino-American relationship
cannot be overestimated.”31
Two former U.S. military attaches posted to China maintained in a report that “regardless of
whether it is a high-level DoD delegation or a functional exchange of medical officers, the U.S.
military does learn something about the PLA from every visit.” They advocated that “the United
States should fully engage China in a measured, long-term military-to-military exchange program
that does not help the PLA improve its warfighting capabilities.” They said, “the most effective
way to ascertain developments in China’s military and defense policies is to have face-to-face
contact at multiple levels over an extended period of time.” Thus, they argued, “even though the
PLA minimizes foreign access to PLA facilities and key officials, the United States has learned,
and can continue to learn, much about the PLA through its long-term relationship.”32

29 Randall Schriver, “The Real Value in Gates’ Asia Trip,” Taipei Times, November 16, 2007.
30 John Pomfret, “Doctor Says Health Ministry Lied About Disease,” Washington Post, April 10, 2003; “Feature: A
Chinese Doctor’s Extraordinary April in 2003,” People’s Daily, June 13, 2003.
31 Captain Brad Kaplan, USN, “China and U.S.: Building Military Relations,” Asia-Pacific Defense Forum, Summer
1999.
32 Kenneth Allen and Eric McVadon, “China’s Foreign Military Relations,” Stimson Center, October 1999.
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Another former U.S. military attache in Beijing (from 1992 to 1995) acknowledged that he saw
many PLA drills and demonstrations by “showcase” units and never any unscripted training
events. Nonetheless, he noted that in August 2003, the PLA arranged for 27 military observers
from the United States and other countries to be the first foreigners to observe a PLA exercise at
its largest training base (which is in the Inner Mongolia region under the Beijing Military
Region). He wrote that “by opening this training area and exercise to foreign observers, the
Chinese military leadership obviously was attempting to send a message about its willingness to
be more ‘transparent’ in order to ‘promote friendship and mutual trust between Chinese and
foreign armed forces.”33 However, in a second PLA exercise opened to foreign observers, the
“Dragon 2004” landing exercise at the Shanwei amphibious operations training base in
Guangdong province in September 2004, only seven foreign military observers from France,
Germany, Britain, and Mexico attended, with no Americans (if invited).34
A retired PACOM Commander, Dennis Blair, co-chaired a task force on the U.S.-China
relationship. Its report of April 2007 recommended a sustained high-level military strategic
dialogue to complement the “Senior Dialogue” started by the Deputy Secretary of State in 2005
and the “Strategic Economic Dialogue” launched by the Secretary of Treasury in 2006.35
Perspectives
The Center for Naval Analyses found in a study that U.S. and PRC approaches to military
exchanges are “diametrically opposed,” thus raising tensions at times. While the United States has
pursued a “bottom-up” effort starting with lower-level contact to work toward mutual
understanding and then strategic agreement, the PRC has sought a “trickle-down” relationship in
which agreement on strategic issues results in understanding and then allows for specific
activities later. The study said that “the PLA leadership regards the military relationship with the
U.S. as a political undertaking for strategic reasons—not a freestanding set of military initiatives
conducted by military professionals for explicitly military reasons. Fundamentally, the military
relationship is a vehicle to pursue strategic political ends.” While recognizing that using the
military relationship to enhance military modernization is extremely important to the PLA, the
study contended that “it is not the key motive force driving the PLA’s engagement with DOD.”
The report also argued that because the PLA suspects the United States uses the military
relationship for deterrence, intelligence, and influence, “it seems ludicrous for them to expose
their strengths and weaknesses to the world’s ‘sole superpower’.” It noted that using “reciprocity”
as a measure of progress “is sure to lead to disappointment.”36

33 Dennis Blasko, “Bei Jian 0308: Did Anyone Hear the Sword on the Inner Mongolian Plains?” RUSI Chinese Military
Update
, October 2003.
34 Xinhua, September 2, 2004; Liberation Army Daily, September 3, 2004; Jane’s Defense Weekly, September 22,
2004.
35 Dennis Blair and Carla Hills, Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S.-China Relations: An
Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course,” April 10, 2007.
36 David Finkelstein and John Unangst, “Engaging DoD: Chinese Perspectives on Military Relations with the United
States,” CNA Corporation, October 1999.
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U.S. Security Interests
With lessons learned, a fundamental issue in overall policy toward China is how to use U.S.
leadership and leverage in managing a prudent program of military contacts that advances, and
does not harm, a prioritized list of U.S. security interests. The Pentagon could pursue such a
program with focused control by the Office of the Secretary of Defense; with consultation with
Congress and public disclosures; and in coordination with allies and friends in the region, such as
Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore. Such a program might include these objectives.
Communication, Conflict Avoidance, and Crisis Management
Crises
The various crises of direct confrontation between the U.S. military and PLA might call for
greater cooperation with China to improve communication, conflict avoidance, and crisis
management. Analysts in China have studied the government’s strengths and weaknesses in crisis
management in light of the EP-3 crisis in 2001.37 Nonetheless, the crisis over the EP-3 aircraft
collision and subsequent confrontations have shown the limits in benefits to the United States of
pursuing personal relationships with PLA leaders, the consultations under the Military Maritime
Consultative Agreement (MMCA), as well as the presidential hotline. From the beginning of the
crisis, PRC ruler Jiang Zemin pressed the United States with a hard-line stance, while PLA
generals followed without any greater inflammatory rhetoric.38 (See the Appendix for text boxes
that summarize the major bilateral tensions in crises or confrontations.)
Telephones
During his second visit to China as PACOM Commander in December 1997, Admiral Prueher
said that “I remember wishing I had your telephone number,” in response to a PLA naval officer’s
question about Prueher’s thinking during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995-1996.39 After becoming
ambassador to China in December 1999, Prueher was nonetheless frustrated when the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the PLA would not answer the phone or return phone calls in the immediate
aftermath of the EP-3 collision crisis in April 2001.40
Still, some continue to believe there could be benefits in fostering relationships with PLA
officers, both at the senior level and with younger, future leaders. While in Beijing in January
2004, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, said that “it’s always an
advantage to be able to pick up a telephone and talk to somebody that you know fairly well. The
relationship that I have with General Liang [Chief of General Staff], the relationship that Defense

37 Author’s discussions with government-affiliated research organizations in China in 2002.
38 CRS Report RL30946, China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident of April 2001: Assessments and Policy Implications,
by Shirley A. Kan et al.
39 LTC Frank Miller (USA), “China Hosts Visit by the U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific,” Asia Pacific Defense
Forum
, Spring 1998. The article ended by saying that “perhaps the most important result of Adm. Prueher’s December
1997 trip to China is that, should there be another crisis like the March 1996 Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis, Adm.
Prueher now has the phone number.”
40 John Keefe, “Anatomy of the EP-3 Incident, April 2001,” Center for Naval Analyses report, January 2002.
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Secretary Rumsfeld has with his counterpart, General Cao, is going to be helpful in that regard.”41
Likewise, visiting Beijing in September 2005, Admiral William Fallon, Commander of the Pacific
Command, referred to the value for his regional responsibilities to “pick up the telephone and call
someone I already know.”42
MMCA
The MMCA, initialed at the first DCT in December 1997 and signed by Secretary Cohen in
Beijing in January 1998, only arranged meetings to discuss maritime and air safety (i.e., to talk
about talking). There was no agreement on communication during crises or rules of engagement.
Despite the 2001 crisis, the Defense Department encountered difficulties with the PLA in
discussions under the MMCA, including simply setting up meetings and PLA objections to U.S.
activities in China’s claimed 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) (even beyond the
territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles from the coast).43
DPCT
In early 2005, U.S. defense and PLA officials held a Special Policy Dialogue to discuss policy
disputes and end an impasse in talks over safety and operational concerns under the MMCA. The
separate discussions continued in the Defense Policy Coordination Talks (DPCT) held in
Washington in December 2006. The first combined exercise held under the MMCA, a search and
rescue exercise (SAREX), did not take place until the fall of 2006, after eight years of
discussions. By 2007, the MMCA’s status and value were in greater doubt, and no MMCA
working groups or plenary meetings took place that year.
On February 25-26, 2008, in Qingdao, PACOM’s Director for Strategic Planning and Policy (J-5),
USMC Major General Thomas Conant, and PLA Navy Deputy Chief of Staff Zhang Leiyu led an
annual meeting under the MMCA, the first since 2006. The PLA sought to amend the MMCA.
The U.S. side opposed PLA proposals to discuss policy differences at the MMCA meetings and to
plan details of future military exercises.44 The PLA and U.S. military have clashed over the PRC’s
disputes with foreign countries over the freedom of navigation in the high seas.
INCSEA
For his nomination hearing to be the PACOM Commander on March 8, 2007, Admiral Timothy
Keating responded to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee by claiming that a
dangerous incident similar to the EP-3 crisis would be “less likely.” He also proposed negotiating

41 Jim Garamone, “China, U.S. Making Progress on Military Relations,” American Forces Press Service, January 15,
2004.
42 U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. William J. Fallon, “Roundtable at Embassy PAS Program Room,” Beijing, China,
September 7, 2005. Adm. Fallon also said he consulted “extensively” with retired Adm. Prueher, former Commander
of the Pacific Command.
43 Chris Johnson, “DOD Will Urge China to Conduct Joint Search and Rescue Exercise,” Inside the Navy, March 13,
2006.
44 Major General Thomas Conant and Rear Admiral Zhang Leiyu, “Summary of Proceedings of the Annual Meeting
Under the Agreement Between the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China and the Department
of Defense of the United States of America on Establishing a Consultative Mechanism to Strengthen Military Maritime
Safety,” Qingdao, February 26, 2008.
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with the PLA an “Incidents at Sea” (INCSEA) protocol, like the agreement with the Soviet Union
(signed in 1972).
After the Pentagon reported in March 2009 that PRC ships were aggressively harassing U.S.
ocean surveillance ships (including the USNS Impeccable) in the Yellow Sea and South China
Sea, some observers raised again the issue of whether to agree with the PLA on an INCSEA. For
example, retired Rear Admiral Eric McVaden suggested that an INCSEA could compel China’s
top leaders to agree to avoid collisions or escalations of tensions, as well as provide rules and a
safety valve. However, skeptics said that the question was not whether there was an agreement or
dialogue. For example, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Randy Schriver pointed out
that the MMCA would have been called an INCSEA (but the United States wanted to avoid “Cold
War connotations”) and that the MMCA had limited usefulness because China has more interest
in stopping U.S. reconnaissance than any interest in the agreement that it had signed. Thus, he
contended that the MMCA already has provided the mechanism for dealing with incidents at sea.
The problem has been that the PLA is not interested in a “rules-based, operator-to-operator
approach to safety on the high seas.”45
Hotline, or DTL
After staff-level preliminary discussions in 2003, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith
formally proposed a hotline for crisis management and confidence building with the PLA at the
DCT in February 2004. However, the PLA did not give a positive signal until a defense
ministerial conference in Singapore in June 2007, when Lt. General Zhang Qinsheng, Deputy
Chief of General Staff, said that the PLA would discuss such a hotline. During Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates’ visit to China in November 2007, the PLA agreed in principle to set up a
defense telephone link (DTL) with the Pentagon. The two sides signed an agreement in February
2008. Then, in May 2008, PACOM’s Commander, Admiral Keating, used the hotline in its first
operational use to communicate with PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff Ma Xiaotian about the
U.S. Air Force’s dispatch of two C-17 transport aircraft to deliver relief supplies to Sichuan
province after an earthquake.
However, during the confrontation in March 2009 when PRC ships aggressively harassed the
U.S. surveillance ships, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters on March 18, 2009, that
he did not use the hotline. Furthermore, some observers urged that PACOM and the Pentagon
prepare transcripts of all uses of the DTL as official records of communication with the PLA.
ATC
Another area for possible improved communication and prevention of accidents is air traffic
control in China, which is controlled by the PLA Air Force. In December 2006, the PLA suddenly
shut down the busy Pudong International Airport near Shanghai and at least three other airports
under the Nanjing Military Region, ostensibly for training.46

45 Quoted in the “Nelson Report,” March 11, 2009.
46 Bruce Stanley, “China’s Congested Skies,” Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2007.
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Sanya Initiative
For dealing with a possible crisis, Admiral Keating revealed in 2007 that he used a network of
retired Admirals who had commanded PACOM and had met with PLA commanders.47 Possibly
related to this reference, a “Sanya Initiative” (a dialogue first held at the Sanya resort on Hainan
island) began in February 2008. Xiong Guangkai (President of the China Institute for
International Strategic Studies and former Deputy Chief of General Staff in charge of
intelligence) led the PLA side. Bill Owens (retired admiral and former Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff) led the U.S. side. The PLA side asked the U.S. participants to help with PRC
objections: namely the Pentagon’s report to Congress on PRC Military Power and legal
restrictions on military contacts in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2000.48 A
second meeting was scheduled for March 2009 at PACOM in Hawaii. While some believe that
more dialogue is useful to avoid conflict, others oppose the use of such unofficial channels.
Transparency, Reciprocity, and Information-Exchange
Critics of military exchanges with China have charged that the United States gained limited
information about the PLA, while granting greater access to the PLA than the access we received.
A related question in the debate has concerned the extent to which the issues of reciprocity and
transparency should affect or impede efforts to increase mutual understanding with the PLA.
According to the Pentagon’s report submitted to Congress in January 2001, in 1998, the PLA
denied requests by the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Ryan, to fly in an SU-27 fighter, see
integration of the SU-27s into units, and see progress in development of the F-10 fighter. Also in
1998, the PLA denied a U.S. request for Secretary of Defense Cohen to visit China’s National
Command Center. Still, the PLA requested access to U.S. exercises showing warfighting
capabilities, with two cases of denial by the Pentagon in 1999: PLA requests to send observers to
the U.S. Army’s premier National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin in California and to the
Red Flag air combat training exercise at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada (see Table 2 on PLA
delegation’s visit in March 1999).
Regarding controversial access to the U.S. Army’s NTC, visits by PLA delegations in the 1990s
included those in November 1994 and December 1997.49 Then, in December 1998, the U.S. Army
reportedly resisted a PLA request for greater, unprecedented access to the NTC in 1999, because
the PLA asked for access greater than that granted to other countries, the PLA would gain
information to enhance its warfighting, and the PLA was unlikely to reciprocate with similar
access for the U.S. military. The PLA wanted to observe, with direct access, the 3rd Infantry
Division (Mechanized) and the 82nd Airborne Division in a training exercise. Army officials
reportedly felt pressured by Admiral Prueher at PACOM and Secretary Cohen to grant the

47 Forum on “Evolving and Enhancing Military Relations,” George Bush U.S.-China Relations Conference 2007,
Washington, DC, October 24, 2007.
48 People’s Daily, February 24, 2008; Sanya Initiative, “Key Outcomes and Summary Report,” March 2008; Jennifer
Harper, “Retired U.S. Brass to Defend Chinese Military,” Washington Times, April 4, 2008; CSIS, “A Briefing on the
Sanya Initiative,” June 6, 2008; author’s consultations, March 2009.
49 The PLA’s visit to the NTC in November 1994 was not the first time that the PLA observed U.S. military training at
Fort Irwin. In August 1985, the United States allowed the PLA to observe military training at Fort Benning, GA; Fort
Bragg, NC; and Fort Irwin, CA. See Colonel Jer Donald Get, “What’s With the Relationship Between America’s Army
and China’s PLA?” Army War College monograph, September 15, 1996.
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request. In the end, the Pentagon announced on March 17, 1999, that it denied the PLA’s
request.50
The Defense Department’s 2003 report to Congress on PRC military power charged that “since
the 1980s, U.S. military exchange delegations to China have been shown only ‘showcase’ units,
never any advanced units or any operational training or realistic exercises.”51 However, a Rand
study in 2004 argued that the DOD’s statement “appears to be inaccurate.” Rand reported that
between 1993 and 1999, U.S. visitors went to 51 PLA units. (PLA delegations visited 71 U.S.
military units between 1994 and 1999.) The report recommended that “the best way of dealing
with the reciprocity and transparency issue is to remove it as an issue.” It called for proper
planning and a focus on educational exchanges.52
In 2005, the PRC did not allow U.S. forces to observe the major combined PLA-Russian military
exercise, “Peace Mission 2005,” and prohibited U.S. participation in the multilateral humanitarian
exercise in Hong Kong, to which U.S. forces had joined for years in the past.53 Still, PACOM
Commander, Admiral Fallon, invited PLA observers to the U.S. “Valiant Shield” exercise that
brought three aircraft carriers to waters off Guam in June 2006. In August 2007, the U.S.
observers were not invited to monitor the PRC-Russian combined exercise “Peace Mission
2007.”
Nonetheless, U.S. participants in contacts with the PLA have reported gaining insights into PLA
capabilities and concepts. The record of military contacts since 1993 (in the next part of this CRS
Report) shows some instances when the PLA allowed U.S. officials to be first-time foreign
visitors with “unprecedented access:”
• Satellite Control Center in Xian (1995)
• Guangzhou Military Region headquarters (1997)
• Beijing Military Region’s Air Defense Command Center (1998)
• 47th Group Army (1998)
• Armored Force Engineering Academy (2000)
• Training base in Inner Mongolia (2003), with multinational access
• Zhanjiang, homeport of the PLAN’s South Sea Fleet (2003)
• Beijing Aerospace Control Center (2004)
• 2nd Artillery (missile corps) headquarters (2005)
• 39th Group Army (2006)
• FB-7 fighter at 28th Air Division (2006)
• Su-27 fighter and T-99 tank (2007)

50 Sean Naylor, “Chinese Denied Full Access to the NTC,” Army Times, March 29, 1999.
51 Department of Defense, “Report on PRC Military Power,” July 2003.
52 Kevin Pollpeter, “U.S. China Security Management: Assessing the Military-to-Military Relationship,” RAND
Corporation, 2004.
53 Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, remarks to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, March 16, 2006.
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• Jining Air Force Base (2007).
Tension Reduction over Taiwan
Tensions over Taiwan have continued to flare since the mid-1990s, with many observers fearing
the possibility of war looming between the United States and China—two nuclear powers. The
Bush Administration maintains that it has managed a balanced policy toward Beijing and Taipei
that preserves peace and stability. Nonetheless, in April 2004, Assistant Secretary of State James
Kelly testified to Congress that U.S. efforts at deterring China’s coercion “might fail” if Beijing
becomes convinced that it must stop Taiwan from advancing on a course toward permanent
separation from China.54 Kelly also noted that the PRC leadership accelerated the PLA buildup
after 1999. The Pentagon reported to Congress in May 2004 that the PLA has “accelerated”
modernization, including a missile buildup, in response to concerns about Taiwan.55
Under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), P.L. 96-8, that has governed U.S. policy toward Taiwan
since 1979, Congress has oversight of the President’s management of the cross-strait situation
under the rubric of the “one China” policy.56 While considering contacts with the PLA, the United
States, after the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, has increased arms sales to and ties with
Taiwan’s military.57 Policy considerations include offering arms sales and cooperation to help
Taiwan’s self-defense; securing leverage over Beijing and Taipei; deterring aggression or
coercion; discouraging provocations from Beijing or Taipei; and supporting cross-strait dialogue
and confidence-building measures. In educational exchanges with the PLA, questions have
concerned whether to allow PLA officers to attend U.S. military academies, colleges, or
universities, and how that change could affect attendees from Taiwan’s military; and whether to
allow attendees from Taiwan at PACOM’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS).
Concerning the APCSS courses in Honolulu, the Bush Administration’s policy change to allow
attendance from Taiwan has affected the PLA’s attendance and interactions among the U.S., PRC,
and other Asian militaries. In November 2001, the Department of Defense directed APCSS to
allow people from Taiwan to participate in courses and conferences. Acknowledging the potential
difficulty for continuing participation by the PLA, the policy called for alternating invitations to
the PRC and Taiwan. In the summer of 2002, three fellows from Taiwan attended the Executive
Course, the first time that Taiwan sent students to APCSS. Dissatisfied with alternating
attendance with Taiwan’s representatives, the PLA stopped sending representatives to APCSS
courses and conferences by 2004.58
While the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954 terminated at the end of 1979 and the TRA does not
commit the United States to defend Taiwan, the TRA states that it is U.S. policy, among other
points:

54 Testimony at a hearing on “The Taiwan Relations Act: The Next 25 Years,” before the House International Relations
Committee, April 21, 2004.
55 Defense Department, “Annual Report on PRC Military Power,” May 29, 2004.
56 See CRS Report RL30341, China/Taiwan: Evolution of the “One China” Policy—Key Statements from Washington,
Beijing, and Taipei
, by Shirley A. Kan.
57 See CRS Report RL30957, Taiwan: Major U.S. Arms Sales Since 1990, by Shirley A. Kan.
58 Author’s discussions at the Biennial Conference at APCSS on July 16-18, 2002; interview with former PACOM
staff.
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• to consider any non-peaceful efforts to determine the future of Taiwan, including
boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific
region and of “grave concern” to the United States;
• to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character (making available to
Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be
necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability);
• to maintain the U.S. capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of
coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of
the people on Taiwan.
There is a question about the extent of the U.S. role in supporting cross-strait dialogue. In
Shanghai in July 2000, visiting Secretary of Defense Cohen said that the Clinton Administration
viewed the newly-elected President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan as offering hope for cross-strait
reconciliation. Cohen stepped out of the narrow mil-to-mil context and met with Wang Daohan,
chairman of the PRC’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). This meeting
raised questions about the U.S. role in more actively encouraging cross-strait talks. Cohen said
that Chen showed flexibility after becoming president and that there was a window of opportunity
for changes.59 In contrast, in Beijing in February 2004, visiting Under Secretary of Defense Feith
said he did not discuss the contentious issue raised by PLA leaders “at length” concerning
referendums in Taiwan—an issue over which the PRC threatened to use force. Feith said he did
not discuss the issue because it was not defense-related.60
There are complications in consideration of the question of Taiwan in the U.S.-PRC military
relationship. Not discussing Taiwan leaves the primary dispute subject to misperception or
miscalculation. However, linking the Taiwan question can raise tensions and frustrations over a
disagreement that military exchanges cannot solve. A 2007 study co-authored by former PACOM
Commander Dennis Blair called for discussion of the PLA’s missile buildup against Taiwan and
greater efforts to reduce tensions across the Taiwan Strait.61
The PLA has suspended military exchanges in retaliation for steps in U.S. policy toward Taiwan,
especially continued arms sales. However, even as the PLA signaled its displeasure and urged
U.S. cooperation in “peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait, suspensions of military exchanges
have played a counter-productive role by raising U.S.-PRC tensions. Moreover, the PRC’s
implicit linkage has targeted the U.S. Navy in particular, precisely the service advocating
engagement with the PLA.
After Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian proposed in June 2007 that Taiwan hold a referendum
on membership in the U.N. under the name “Taiwan” on the day of the next presidential election
(scheduled for March 22, 2008), Beijing opposed it as a step toward Taiwan’s de jure
independence. While joining the PRC in opposing the referendum, the Bush Administration
continued the U.S. policy of providing some security assistance to Taiwan. After notifications to
Congress of arms sales to Taiwan in September and November 2007, the PRC protested by

59 Department of Defense, “Secretary Cohen’s Press Conference at the Shanghai Stock Exchange,” Shanghai, China,
July 14, 2000.
60 Joe McDonald (AP), “Feith Voices Concern Over Chinese Missiles,” Army Times, February 11, 2004.
61 Dennis Blair and Carla Hills, co-chairs of a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S.-China Relations:
An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course,” April 10, 2007.
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refusing to hold military-to-military exchanges, including an annual MMCA meeting scheduled
for October 2007. The PRC also denied port visits at Hong Kong in November 2007 by U.S.
Navy minesweepers in distress (USS Patriot and USS Guardian) and by the carrier group led by
the USS Kitty Hawk for the Thanksgiving holiday and family reunions, leading to official protests
by the Pentagon to the PLA.
After sailing away from the denied port call in Hong Kong toward Japan, the USS Kitty Hawk
sailed through the Taiwan Strait, raising objections in China with claims in PRC media of the
strait as China’s “internal waterway.” When asked at a news conference in Beijing on January 15,
2008, visiting PACOM Commander, Admiral Keating said, “we don’t need China’s permission to
go through the Taiwan Strait. It’s international water. We will exercise our free right of passage
whenever and wherever we choose as we have done repeatedly in the past and we’ll do in the
future.” Two days later, when asked whether ships need the PRC’s permission to sail through the
Taiwan Strait, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson did not reject the idea of permission from
Beijing while claiming the strait as a “highly sensitive area.”
After the Bush Administration notified Congress of some pending arms sales to Taiwan on
October 3, 2008, the PLA suspended some but not all military exchanges and nonproliferation
talks. The Defense Department spokesman said that the PRC canceled or postponed several
meetings in “continued politicization” of the military-to-military exchanges.62
After tentative support in 2008 in both Beijing and Taipei for cross-strait confidence building
measures (CBMs), PACOM’s Admiral Keating raised the question of a U.S. role when he offered
in February 2009 to host talks between the PLA and Taiwan’s military.63 However, Reagan’s Six
Assurances to Taiwan in 1982 included one of not mediating between Beijing and Taipei.
Weapons Nonproliferation
Despite past engagement with the PLA to seek cooperation in weapons nonproliferation, the
United States continues to have concerns about PRC entities and has repeatedly imposed
sanctions. Secretary of Defense Cohen visited China and urged its commitment to weapons
nonproliferation. China did not join in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
announced by President Bush in May 2003 (to interdict dangerous shipments).
There is a debate about the policy of the Bush Administration in engaging China—and the PLA—
in a multilateral effort to achieve the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and
nuclear programs. In April 2003, China hosted trilateral talks among the United States, China, and
North Korea. Then, China hosted the first round of six-nation talks in August 2003 that also
included Japan, South Korea, and Russia. The following month, PLA units replaced paramilitary
People’s Armed Police (PAP) units along China’s border with North Korea, apparently to signal
to Pyongyang the seriousness of the tensions and warn against provocative actions. Beijing has
hosted additional rounds of Six-Party Talks. After the third round, PRC leaders hosted North
Korea’s defense minister in July 2004. There have been questions about whether China has been
adequately assertive in using its economic and political leverage over North Korea and whether
China shares the U.S. priority of the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement—not
just a freeze—of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. China, nonetheless, has stated the

62 Statement quoted in “China Cancels Military Contacts with U.S. in Protest,” AP, October 6, 2008.
63 Quoted in “Optimism Grows for U.S.-China Military Talks,” New York Times, February 19, 2009.
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common goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and demonstrated its displeasure with North
Korea after its missile and nuclear tests in 2006, including during CMC Vice Chairman Guo
Boxiong’s visit in the United States in 2006.64
Strategic Nuclear and Space Talks
As for a strategic nuclear dialogue, the Clinton Administration had included nuclear forces as a
priority area for expanded military discussions, including during the visits to China in 1998 of
Secretary of Defense Cohen and President Clinton. In his visit to China in 1998, President
Clinton announced a bilateral agreement not to target strategic nuclear weapons against each
other, but it was symbolic and lacked implementation.
Since then, concerns have increased about China’s modernizing strategic nuclear force and its
“No First Use” policy, including whether it is subject to debate. In July 2005, PLA Major General
Zhu Chenghu, a dean at the PLA’s National Defense University, told western journalists in
Beijing that “if the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition into the target
zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” and he included
the PLA’s naval ships and fighters as China’s “territory.” Zhu added that if the United States is
determined to intervene in a Taiwan scenario, “we will be determined to respond, and we Chinese
will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all cities east of Xian [an ancient capital city in north-
central China]. Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of, or two
hundreds of, or even more cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.” Zhu also dismissed China’s
“No First Use” policy, saying that it applied only to non-nuclear states and could be changed.65
China’s experts argued that Zhu’s comments reflected China’s concerns about the challenges
presented by U.S. defense policy and nuclear strategy for China’s policy.66
When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld visited China in October 2005, the PLA accorded him the
honor of being the first foreigner to visit the Second Artillery’s headquarters. Its commander,
General Jing Zhiyuan, assured Rumsfeld that China would not be the first to use nuclear
weapons.67 General Jing later hosted the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
Representative Ike Skelton, at the Second Artillery’s headquarters in August 2007.68
The Bush Administration invited General Jing to visit the U.S. Strategic Command
(STRATCOM), as discussed during a summit between Bush and Hu Jintao in Washington in April
2006. Two months later, Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman visited Beijing for the
DCT and discussed the invitation to the 2nd Artillery Commander. In October 2006, the
STRATCOM commander, General James Cartwright (USMC), expressed interest in engaging
with the PLA on space issues, including ways in which the two countries can avoid and handle

64 CRS Report RL31555, China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues, by
Shirley A. Kan.
65 Jason Dean, “Chinese General Lays Nuclear Card on U.S.’ Table,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2005; Danny
Gittings, “General Zhu Goes Ballistic,” Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2005.
66 World Security Institute China Program, “Opening the Debate on U.S.-China Nuclear Relations,” China Security,
Autumn 2005.
67 General Jing’s reiteration of the “no first use” pledge was cited by one official PRC media report: “Rumsfeld Visits
China; The Chinese Side Reiterates It Will Not Use Nuclear Weapons First,” Zhongguo Tongxun She [New China
News Agency]
, October 20, 2005.
68 Xinhua and Associated Press, August 27, 2007.
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collisions or interference between satellites, and perceptions of attacks on satellites.69 However,
General Jing declined to schedule a visit.70 On January 11, 2007, the PLA conducted its first
successful direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test by launching a missile with a kinetic
kill vehicle to destroy a PRC satellite.71 On June 13, 2007, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
Richard Lawless testified to the House Armed Services Committee that the PLA would not set a
date to hold a dialogue on nuclear policy, strategy, and doctrine. Lawless said that PLA strategic
forces have improved the capability to target the U.S. mainland.72 General Jing Zhiyuan has
traveled outside of China, but not to the United States, including a trip to Sweden and Bulgaria in
November 2007.
The PLA took some modest steps in December 2007, when the PLA delegation to the 9th DCT
included 2nd Artillery Deputy Chief of Staff Yang Zhiguo. In April 2008, the PLA and the Defense
Department held talks in Washington on nuclear strategy at the “experts” level. The PLA
proposed to change the Pentagon-PLA defense policy talks into a “Strategic Dialogue,” that
would include nuclear policy. In early 2009, the National Security Council’s Senior Director for
Asia, Dennis Wilder, said that the PLA was intentionally being mysterious to have an advantage
and expressed concerns about miscalculation and doubts China would engage in arms control.73
General Jing Zhiyuan visited Tanzania and Uganda in October 2008, but not the United States. In
July 2009, General Jing visited Serbia and Ukraine.
Counterterrorism
The PRC’s cooperation in counterterrorism after the attacks on September 11, 2001, has not
included military cooperation with the U.S. military. The U.S. Commanders of the Central and
Pacific Commands, General Tommy Franks and Admiral Dennis Blair, separately confirmed in
April 2002 that China did not provide military cooperation (nor was it requested) in Operation
Enduring Freedom against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (e.g., basing, staging, or overflight) and that
China’s shared intelligence was not specific enough. Also, the Pentagon issued a report in June
2002 on the international coalition fighting terrorism and did not include China among the
countries providing military contributions. China has provided diplomatic support, cited by the
State Department. U.S.-PRC counterterrorism cooperation has been limited, while U.S. concerns
have increased about the PRC’s increased influence in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) and its call for U.S. withdrawals from Central Asia, and about PRC-origin small arms and
anti-aircraft missiles found in Afghanistan and Iraq.74
Some have urged caution in military cooperation with China on this front, while others see
benefits for the U.S. relationship with China and the war on terrorism. Senator Bob Smith and
Representative Dana Rohrabacher wrote Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in late 2001, to express
concerns about renewed military contacts with China. In part, they argued that “China is not a
good prospect for counterterrorism cooperation,” because of concerns that China has practiced
internal repression in the name of counterterrorism and has supplied technology to rogue regimes

69 Jeremy Singer, “Cartwright Seeks Closer Ties with China, Russia,” Space News, October 16, 2006.
70 Bill Gertz, “Chinese General’s U.S. Visit for Nuke Talks Deferred,” Washington Times, January 15, 2007.
71 See CRS Report RS22652, China’s Anti-Satellite Weapon Test, by Shirley A. Kan.
72 House Armed Services Committee, hearing on China: Recent Security Developments, June 13, 2007.
73 Quoted in “Bush Official Urges China to Lift Nuclear Secrecy,” AP, January 14, 2009.
74 See CRS Report RL33001, U.S.-China Counterterrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S. Policy, by Shirley A. Kan.
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and state sponsors of terrorism.75 In contrast, a report by Rand in 2004 urged a program of
security management with China that includes counterterrorism as one of three components.76
As preparations intensified for the summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, a policy issue
concerned the extent to which the United States, including the U.S. military, should support
security at the games to protect U.S. citizens and should cooperate with the PLA and the
paramilitary PAP. With concerns about internal repression by the PRC regime in the Tiananmen
Crackdown of June 1989 and after, U.S. sanctions (in Section 902 of the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act for FY1990-FY1991, P.L. 101-246) have denied the export to China of defense
articles/services, including helicopters, as well as crime control equipment. Presidential waivers
are authorized. A precedent was set in 2004, when various U.S. departments, including the
Department of Defense, provided security assistance for the Olympic games in Athens, Greece, in
2004. On June 22, 2006, at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Brigadier General
John Allen, the Principal Director for Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, testified that the Pentagon started discussions with China regarding security cooperation
for the 2008 Olympics. However, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless testified
to the House Armed Services Committee on June 13, 2007, that China has not accepted offers
from the Defense Department to assist in Olympic security.
In February 2009, U.S. policymakers proposed a non-lethal supply route from China to
Afghanistan, partly due to worry about the vulnerable route through Pakistan. The proposal has
not seen progress, but seems less urgent after Kyrgyzstan in June reversed its threat in February to
evict U.S. forces from Manas air base. Speaking at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore
in May 2009, Defense Secretary Gates said that he would welcome China’s help in Afghanistan,
including for security assistance of civilian efforts there.77
Accounting for POW/MIAs
For humanitarian reasons or to advance the broader U.S.-PRC relationship, the PLA has been
helpful in U.S. efforts to resolve POW/MIA cases from World War II, the Vietnam War, and the
Cold War. In February 2001, the Defense Department characterized PRC assistance to the United
States in recovering remains from World War II as “generous,” citing the missions in 1994 in
Tibet and in 1997-1999 in Maoer Mountain in southern China.78
However, for 16 years—even as the survivors of those lost in the Korean War were aging and
dying—the United States faced a challenge in securing the PLA’s cooperation in U.S. accounting
for POW/MIAs from the Korean War. Despite visits by the Director of the Defense POW/MIA
Office and other senior U.S. military leaders to China and improved bilateral relations, the United
States was not able to announce progress in obtaining cooperation from the PLA until 2008.
In April 1992, a military official in Eastern Europe supplied a report to then Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney, alleging that “several dozen” American military personnel captured in the Korean
War (1950-1953) were sent to a camp in the Northeastern city of Harbin in China where they

75 Senator Bob Smith and Representative Dana Rohrabacher, letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
December 17, 2001.
76 Rand, “U.S.-China Security Management: Assessing the Military-to-Military Relationship,” July 2004.
77 Vijay Joshi, “U.S. Urges Europe, China to Step up Afghan Help,” AP, May 30, 2009.
78 Department of Defense, news release, “China Provides World War II U.S. Aircraft Crash Sites,” February 8, 2001.
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were used in psychological and medical experiments before being executed or dying in
captivity.79 In May 1992, the State Department raised the issue of POW/MIAs with the PRC,
saying it was a “matter of the highest national priority,” and in June 1992, the Senate Select
Committee on POW/MIA Affairs received information from the Russian government indicating
that over 100 American POWs captured in the Korean War were interrogated by the Soviet Union
and possibly sent to China.80 The United States also presented to the PRC a list of 125 American
military personnel still unaccounted for since the Korean War, who were believed to have been
interrogated in the Soviet Union and then sent to China. China responded to the United States that
it did not receive anyone on that list from the former Soviet Union.81 But that response apparently
did not address whether China received American military personnel from North Korea or China
itself transferred them.
Upon returning from North Korea and Southeast Asia in December 1992, Senator Robert Smith,
Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, disclosed that officials in
Pyongyang admitted that “hundreds” of American POWs captured in the Korean War were sent to
China and did not return to North Korea. According to Smith, North Korean officials said that
China’s PLA operated POW camps in North Korea during the Korean War and the Cold War and
detained Americans in China’s northeastern region. Moreover, North Korean officials told Smith
that some American POWs could have been sent to the Soviet Union for further interrogations.
Smith advocated that the U.S. government press the PRC government for information on POWs
rather than accept the PRC’s denials that it had POWs or information about them, saying “this is
where the answers lie.”82 (The Senate created the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in
August 1991, chaired by Senator John Kerry. It concluded in December 1992, after gaining
“important new information” from North Korea on China’s involvement with U.S. POWs.83)
Secretary of Defense Cohen visited China in 1998 and stressed cooperation on POW/MIA cases
one of four priorities in relations with the PLA. After visiting China in January 1999 to seek the
PLA’s cooperation in opening its secret archives on the Korean War, the Director of the Defense
POW/MIA Office (DPMO), Robert Jones, said that “we believe that Chinese records of the war
may hold the key to resolving the fates of many of our missing servicemen from the Korean
War.” The office’s spokesman, Larry Greer, reported that the PRC agreed to look into the U.S.
request to access the archives.84
In March 2003, DPMO Director Jerry Jennings visited China and said that PRC records likely
hold “the key” to resolving some POW/MIA cases from the Korean War.85 Just days after the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, visited Beijing in January 2004, PRC
media reported on January 19, 2004, that the government declassified the first batch of over
10,000 files in its archives on the PRC’s foreign relations from 1949 to 1955. However, this step
apparently excluded wartime records, and General Myers did not announce cooperation by China

79 Melissa Healy, “China Said to Have Experimented on U.S. POWs,” Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1992.
80 Mark Sauter, “POW Probe Extends to Korea, China,” Tacoma News-Tribune, June 21, 1992.
81 “No U.S. POWs in China,” Beijing Review, July 27-August 2, 1992.
82 Carleton R. Bryant, “N. Korea: POWs Sent to China: Senator Says U.S. Must Prod Beijing,” Washington Times,
December 23, 1992.
83 Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, S.Rept. 103-1U.S. Senate, Report 103-1, January 3, 1993.
Also see CRS Report RL33452, POWs and MIAs: Status and Accounting Issues, by Charles A. Henning.
84 Sue Pleming, “U.S. Asks China for Access to Korean POW Files,” Reuters, February 4, 1999.
85 Department of Defense, “U.S., China Agree to Enhanced Cooperation on POW/MIA Matters,” March 29, 2003.
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in providing information in its archives related to American POW/MIAs from the Korean War.86
The PRC later announced in July 2004 the declassification of a second batch of similar files. In
February 2005, DPMO acknowledged that PRC cooperation on Korean War cases remained the
“greatest challenge.”87
Visiting Beijing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2005, Pentagon officials
again raised the issue of access to China’s Korean War archives believed to hold documents on
American POWs.88 In July 2006, General Guo Boxiong (the top PLA commander) visited the
United States and agreed to open PLA archives on the Korean War. However, in his June 2007
report to Congress on military contacts, Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported that the PLA’s
cooperation “yielded mixed results.” PLA cooperation with DPMO was “limited” in 2006, despite
General Guo’s promise.
There was some progress in February 2008, when China finally agreed to allow access to the PLA
archives on the Korean War. However, the PLA did not grant direct access to the records, as asked
by the Defense Department. The DPMO would have to request searches done by PRC researchers
at the archives and the PLA would control and turn over acceptable records. The two sides would
have to also negotiate the frequency, amount, and expenses of the searches.89 Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Charles Ray signed a Memorandum of
Understanding in Shanghai on February 29, 2008.90 Despite the PRC’s refusal to cooperate for
many years, a PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman said China agreed out of “humanitarianism.”91
On July 10, 2008, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel held a hearing
on POWs and MIAs, with discussion of POW/MIAs taken to China during the Korean War,
including Sergeant Richard Desautels who was buried in China in 1953. In mid-2009, the PLA
finally provided to the DOD some information, but that consisted of 25 pages of summaries of
supposedly classified documents on U.S. POW/MIAs from the Korean War (and not the
documents), after the United States paid the PLA $150,000.92


86 Confirmed in discussions with DPMO officials, January 29, 2004.
87 Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, “Personnel Accounting Progress in China as of February 4, 2005,”
February 2005.
88 Robert Burns, “Pentagon Seeking Access to Chinese Records on War MIAs,” AP/Arizona Republic, October 23,
2005; and author’s discussions with DPMO.
89 “Pentagon Cites MIA Deal With China,” AP, February 25, 2008, quoting DPMO spokesman Larry Greer.
90 Defense Department, “U.S. and China Sign POW/ MIA Arrangement,” February 29, 2008.
91 “PRC Will Continually Help Look for Remains of U.S. Soldiers Killed in Korean War,” Xinhua, February 28, 2008.
92 “Inside the Ring,” Washington Times, July 16, 2009.
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Appendix. Major Military Contacts Since 1993
The scope of this record of mil-to-mil contacts focuses on senior-level visits, strategic talks,
functional exchanges, agreements, commissions, and training or exercises. This compiled
chronology does not provide a detailed list of all mil-to-mil contacts (that also include confidence
building measures, educational exchanges that include visits by students at U.S. military colleges
and the U.S. Capstone educational program for new general/flag officers, the numerous port calls
in Hong Kong that continued after its hand-over from British to PRC control in July 1997,
disaster relief missions, multilateral conferences, “track two” discussions sponsored by former
Defense Secretary William Perry, etc.). There is no security assistance, as U.S. sanctions against
arms sales have remained since 1989. Sources include numerous official statements, reports to
Congress, documents, U.S. and PRC news stories, interviews, and observations. Specific dates
are provided to the extent possible, while there are instances in which just the month is reported.
Text boxes summarize major bilateral tensions in crises or confrontations as a context for the
alternating periods of enthusiastic and skeptical contacts.

1993

In July 1993, the Clinton Administration suspected that a PRC cargo ship, cal ed the Yinhe, was going to Iran with
chemicals that could be used for chemical weapons and sought to inspect its cargo. In an unusual move, on August 9,
China first disclosed that it protested U.S. “harassment” and finally allowed U.S. participation in a Saudi inspection of
the ship’s cargo on August 26, 1993. Afterward, the State Department said that the suspected chemicals were not
found on the ship at that time. The PRC has raised this Yinhe incident as a grievance against the United States and the
credibility of U.S. intelligence in particular.


November 1-2
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Chas Freeman visited
China, renewing mil-to-mil ties for the first time since the Tiananmen Crackdown in
June 1989. Freeman met with General Liu Huaqing (a Vice Chairman of the CMC),
General Chi Haotian (Defense Minister), Lieutenant General Xu Huizi (Deputy Chief of
General Staff), and Lieutenant General Huai Guomo (Vice Chairman of the Commission
of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, or COSTIND).
1994

January 17-21
Lieutenant General Paul Cerjan, President of the National Defense University (NDU),
visited China to advance professional military exchanges with the PLA’s NDU. Cerjan
visited the Nanjing Military Region and saw the 179th Infantry Division.
March 11-14
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Frank Wisner visited China, along with Secretary
of State Warren Christopher.
July 6-8
Commander of the Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral Charles Larson, visited China
and held talks with PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff, General Xu Huizi.
August 15-18
The Director of the PRC’s National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (NBSM) visited
the United States and signed an agreement for a cooperative program with the Defense
Mapping Agency, the predecessor of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA),
regarding the global positioning system (GPS). The agreement refers to the “Protocol
for Scientific and Technical Cooperation in Surveying and Mapping Studies Concerning
Scientific and Technical Cooperation in the Application of Geodetic and Geophysical
Data to Mapping, Charting, and Geodetic (MC&G) Programs.”
August 15-25
PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff, General Xu Huizi, visited the United States and met
with Defense Secretary William Perry and General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Washington, DC, and PACOM Commander, Admiral Richard
Macke, in Hawaii.
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September 7-29
In a POW/MIA operation, a U.S. Army team traveled to Tibet with PLA support to
recover the remains of two U.S. airmen whose C-87 cargo plane crashed into a glacier
at 14,000 feet in Tibet on December 31, 1944, during a flight over the “hump” back to
India from Kunming, China, in World War II.
September 19-24
Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, General Merrill McPeak, visited China and met with
PLA Air Force Commander, General Cao Shuangming.
October 16-19
Secretary of Defense William Perry visited China and met with Generals Liu Huaqing
(CMC Vice Chairman) and Chi Haotian (Defense Minister). On October 17, Perry and
PLA General Ding Henggao, Director of COSTIND, conducted the first meeting of the
newly-established U.S.-China Joint Defense Conversion Commission. They signed the
“U.S.-China Joint Defense Conversion Commission: Minutes of the First Meeting,
Beijing, October 17, 1994.”

In a confrontation in the Yel ow Sea on October 27-29, 1994, the U.S. aircraft carrier battle group led by the USS
Kitty Hawk discovered and tracked a Han-class nuclear attack submarine of the PLA Navy. In response, the PLA Air
Force sent fighters toward the U.S. aircraft tracking the submarine. Although no shots were fired by either side, China
followed up the incident with a warning, issued to the U.S. Naval Attache over dinner in Beijing, that the PLA would
open fire in a future incident.


November 5-10
The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lieutenant General James
Clapper, visited China. He met with the GSD’s Second Department (Intelligence) and
the affiliated China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), saw the 179th
Division in Nanjing, and received a briefing on tactical intelligence.
November 11-15
The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, David Hinson, and the
Defense Department’s Executive Director of the Policy Board on Federal Aviation,
Frank Colson, visited China to formulate the “U.S.-China 8-Step Civil-Military Air
Traffic Control Cooperative Plan” agreed to during establishment of the Joint Defense
Conversion Commission.
November 19-26
The PLA sent a delegation of new general and flag officers to the United States (similar
to the U.S. Capstone program), led by Lieutenant General Ma Weizhi, Vice President of
the NDU. They visited: Fort Irwin (including the National Training Center); Nellis Air
Force Base (and observed a Red Flag exercise); Washington, DC (for meetings at NDU
and Pentagon, including with the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral
William Owens); and Norfolk Naval Base (and toured an aircraft carrier).
December
A delegation from NIMA visited China to sign a GPS survey plan and discuss provision
of PRC data on gravity for a NIMA/NASA project on gravity modeling and
establishment of a GPS tracking station near Beijing.
December 10-13
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Requirements Ted Warner visited
China to conduct briefings on the U.S. defense strategy and budget as part of a defense
transparency initiative, based on an agreement between Secretary Perry and General
Chi Haotian in October 1994.
1995

January 28-February 10
PLA Major General Wen Guangchun, Assistant to the Director of the General Logistics
Department (GLD), visited the United States at the invitation of the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology. The U.S. military provided
briefings on logistics doctrine and systems and al owed the PLA visitors to observe U.S.
military logistics activities and installations.
February 6-10
U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, Lieutenant General
Joseph Ralston, led a delegation of officials from the Department of Defense, Federal
Aviation Administration, and Department of Commerce to visit China. They studied the
PRC’s civil-military air traffic control system and discussed future cooperation.


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In early February 1995, the PLA Navy occupied Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, although
Mischief Reef is about 150 miles west of the Philippines’ island of Palawan but over 620 miles southeast of China’s
Hainan island off its southern coast. China seized a claim to territory in the South China Sea against a country other
than Vietnam for the first time and chal enged the Philippines, a U.S. treaty al y. Some Members of Congress
introduced resolutions urging U.S. support for peace and stability. Three months later, on May 10, 1995, the Clinton
Administration issued a statement opposing the use or threat of force to resolve the competing claims, without
naming China.


February 24-March 7
President of the PLA’s NDU, Lieutenant General Zhu Dunfa, visited the United States.
Zhu visited West Point in New York; U.S. NDU and Pentagon in Washington, DC;
Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Naval Air Station North Island, Marine Recruit
Depot, and Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in California; and PACOM in Hawaii.
March 22-24
The USS Bunker Hill (Aegis-equipped, Ticonderoga-class cruiser) visited Qingdao, in the
first U.S. Navy ship visit to China since 1989. The senior officer aboard, Rear Admiral
Bernard Smith, Commander of Carrier Group Five, met with Vice Admiral Wang Jiying,
Commander of the PLA Navy (PLAN)’s North Sea Fleet.
March 25-28
A Deputy Director of COSTIND, Lieutenant General Huai Guomo, visited Washington
to meet with officials at the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and
people in the private sector to discuss possible projects for the Joint Defense
Conversion Commission.
March 26-April 2
Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai, PLA Assistant Chief of General Staff (with the
portfolio of military intelligence), visited the United States, reciprocating for Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Requirements Ted Warner’s visit to Beijing in
December 1994. Xiong provided briefings on the PLA’s defense strategy and budget,
and the composition of the armed forces, and received briefings on U.S. national and
global information infrastructures.
March 28-April 4
A delegation from the PRC’s National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping visited the
United States to hold discussions with NIMA and release PRC gravity data for analysis.
April 19
Vice Minister of the PRC’s General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC) Bao Peide
visited the United States to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S.
companies. U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, Lieutenant
General Ralph Eberhart, briefed the PRC delegation on U.S. Air Force air traffic control
programs.
April 25-30
PACOM Commander, Admiral Richard Macke, visited China, hosted by PLA Deputy
Chief of General Staff, General Xu Huizi.
May 17-22
PLA Air Force Commander, Lieutenant General Yu Zhenwu, visited the United States,
hosted by the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. Originally scheduled to last until May 27, the
PLA terminated the visit on May 22 to protest the Clinton Administration’s decision to
grant a visa to Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui to visit his alma mater, Cornel
University.

On July 21-28, 1995, after the Clinton Administration al owed Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui to make a private visit
to give a speech at Cornell University on June 9, the PLA launched M-9 short-range ballistic missiles in “test-firings”
toward target areas in the East China Sea. The PLA held other exercises directed against Taiwan until November.

On August 3, 1995, China expel ed two U.S. Air Force attaches stationed in Hong Kong who traveled to China and
were detained. China accused them of collecting military intelligence in restricted military areas along the southeastern
coast.

August 31-September 2
PLA Commander of the Guangzhou Military Region, Lieutenant General Li Xilin, visited
Hawaii to participate in a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of victory in
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the Pacific in World War II. Li met with Secretary of Defense Perry, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, and PACOM Commander, Admiral Macke.
September 7-16
Two NIMA teams visited China to establish GPS satellite tracking stations and discuss
plans for a GPS survey in China in 1996.
October 15-25
Lieutenant General (USAF) Ervin Rokke, President of the NDU, visited China and held
talks with Lieutenant General Xing Shizhong, President of the PLA’s NDU, about
professional military educational exchanges. The PLA arranged for Rokke to visit the
196th Infantry Division under the Beijing Military Region, the Satellite Control Center in
Xian (the first U.S. access), the Guilin Army Academy in Guilin, and the Guangzhou
Military Region.
November 14-18
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph Nye visited
Beijing and met with General Chi Haotian. Nye said that “nobody knows” what the
United States would do if the PLA attacked Taiwan.

1996
On January 19, 1996, China expel ed the U.S. Assistant Air Force Attache and the Japanese Air Force Attache, after
detaining them while they were traveling in southern China.

January 20-27
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations of the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant
General Ralph Eberhart, visited China as head of a delegation of representatives of the
Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, and Department of
Commerce, as part of the Air Traffic Control Cooperative Program.
January 31-February 4
The USS Fort McHenry, a dock-landing ship, visited Shanghai, under the command of
Rear Admiral Walter Doran.
February 6
Visiting PRC Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy Walter Slocombe at the Pentagon.
March 7
Secretary of Defense Perry, along with National Security Advisor Anthony Lake,
attended a dinner meeting hosted by Secretary of State Christopher at the State
Department for PRC Foreign Affairs Office Director Liu Huaqiu. Perry warned Liu that
there would be “grave consequences” should the PLA attack Taiwan.

On March 8-15, 1996, the PLA launched four M-9 short-range ballistic missiles into waters close to the two ports of
Keelung and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. Leading up to Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election on March 23, the PLA
conducted live fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait on March 12-25.

On March 10-11, 1996, the United States announced that it would deploy two aircraft carriers, the USS Independence
and USS Nimitz, to waters near the east coast of Taiwan.

March 9-17
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Stephen Joseph visited China to
advance bilateral military medical relations. Joseph and a Deputy Director of the GLD,
Lieutenant General Zhou Youliang, signed a “Memorandum of Medical Exchange and
Cooperation.”
April 5-13
Geodesy and geophysical staff from NIMA visited China to hold discussions with the
PRC’s National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.
May 4-20
A geodesy and geophysical survey team from NIMA visited China to perform a
cooperative GPS survey.
June 25-28
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe visited China.
July 11-August 31
The PRC’s National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping visited the United States to hold
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discussions with NIMA on cooperative projects and computation of results for the GPS
China survey.
September 2-8
PACOM Commander, Admiral Joseph Prueher, visited China, hosted by a PLA Deputy
Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai.
September 10
The Office for Defense Procurement/Foreign Contracting of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Technology hosted Vice Chairman of the State Planning
Commission She Jianming at the Pentagon and provided a briefing on the Defense
Department’s procurement system.
September 16-18
NIMA participated in the 9th meeting of the U.S.-PRC Joint Working Group for
Scientific and Technical Cooperation in Surveying in Beijing.
September 17-29
A Deputy Director of the GLD, Lieutenant General Zhou Youliang, visited the United
States to advance bilateral military medical relations, as the reciprocal visit for that of
the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs to China in March 1996. Both
sides discussed cooperation between military hospitals, such as PLA 301 Hospital and
Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
September 17
At the Pentagon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kurt Campbel met with the vice president of the Chinese Institute for Contemporary
International Relations (CICIR), which is associated with the Ministry of State Security.
September 21-27
A team from NIMA visited China to perform maintenance on the GPS tracking station
and discuss cooperative plans on gravity data.
October 4-17
Lieutenant General Xing Shizhong, President of the PLA’s NDU, visited the United
States. He and Lieutenant General Ervin Rokke, President of the U.S. NDU, signed a
“Memorandum on Cooperation and Reciprocal Relations” between the two NDUs.
They agreed to undertake reciprocal interaction on a broad range of issues relevant to
professional military education, including military art, the evolution of strategy and
doctrine, strategic assessment, the impact of technological advance on the nature of
warfare, library science, and publishing.
October 11-17
The Surgeon General of the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant General Edgar Anderson, led a
U.S. military medical delegation to participate in the XXXI International Congress on
Military Medicine held in Beijing.
October 20
At the Pentagon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kurt Campbell met with a delegation from the Chinese Institute of International
Strategic Studies (CIISS), which is associated with the PLA.
November 11-19
The Director of DIA, Lieutenant General Patrick Hughes, visited China.
December 5-18
General Chi Haotian, a Vice Chairman of the CMC and Minister of Defense, visited the
United States, to reciprocate for Defense Secretary Perry’s visit to China in October
1994. Perry announced that General Chi’s visit al owed for discussions of global and
regional security issues as well as the future of mil-to-mil relations. While in
Washington, General Chi met with President William Clinton. A controversy arose
when General Chi gave a speech at NDU at Fort McNair and defended the PLA’s
crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in Beijing in 1989 (during which he was the
PLA’s Chief of General Staff) and claimed—apparently in a narrow sense—that no one
died in Tiananmen Square itself. DOD provided a draft proposal for a bilateral military
maritime cooperative agreement. The two sides agreed to continue U.S. port calls to
Hong Kong after its hand-over from British to PRC control on July 1, 1997; to al ow
PLA ship visits to Hawaii and the U.S. west coast; to institutionalize Defense
Consultative Talks; to hold senior-level visits; and to al ow U.S. repatriation of the
remains of the crew of a B-24 bomber that crashed in southern China in World War II
(after General Chi presented dog tags found at the crash site). After Washington, Perry
arranged for General Chi to travel to Air Force and Navy facilities in Norfolk, Virginia;
the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Army units at Fort Hood,
Texas; the Cooperative Monitoring Center at the Sandia National Laboratory in
Albuquerque, New Mexico (for discussion of technology that could be used to verify
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty); and PACOM in Hawaii headed by Admiral Joseph
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Prueher.
1997

January 13-17
A Defense POW/MIA team went to Maoer Mountain in Guangxi province (in southern
China) to recover the remains of a “Flying Tigers” crew whose B-24 bomber crashed
into the mountain in 1944 after bombing Japanese forces near Taiwan during World
War II.
January 15
At the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Frank
Kramer met with Wang Daohan, president of the PRC’s Association for Relations
Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
February 21-March 6
Lieutenant General Kui Fulin, a Deputy Chief of General Staff, visited the United States,
hosted by the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General Dennis Reimer. General Kui
visited the Pentagon, West Point in New York, U.S. Army Forces Command in Georgia,
Fort Benning in Georgia, and PACOM in Hawaii.
February 24-27
The Principal Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security,
Gary Vest, visited Beijing to participate in the 1997 China Environment Forum and met
with PLA leaders to discuss environmental security issues.
March 9-25
PLA Naval ships (the Luhu-class destroyer Harbin, the Luda-class destroyer Zhuhai, and
the oiler Nanchang) visited Pearl Harbor, HI (March 9-13) and San Diego, CA (March
21-25), in the PLA Navy (PLAN)’s second ship visit to Pearl Harbor and first port call to
the U.S. west coast. As part of the occasion, Vice Admiral He Pengfei (a PLAN Deputy
Commander) and Vice Admiral Wang Yongguo (PLAN South Sea Fleet Commander)
visited the United States.
April
Major General John Cowlings, Commandant of the Industrial College of the Armed
Forces of the U.S. NDU, visited China.
May 12-15
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, visited China,
hosted by the PLA’s Chief of General Staff, General Fu Quanyou. On May 14, 1997,
Shalikashvili gave a speech at the PLA’s NDU, in which he called for mil-to-mil contacts
that are deeper, more frequent, more balanced, and more developed, in order to
decrease suspicion, advance cooperation, and prevent miscalculations in a crisis. He
called for a more equal exchange of information, confidence building measures (CBMs),
military academic and functional exchanges, the PLA’s participation in multinational
military activities, and a regular dialogue between senior military leaders. He also urged
the completion of the military maritime and air cooperative agreement. However,
Shalikashvili reportedly got only a limited view of the PLA during a visit to the 15th
Airborne Army (in Hubei province).
July
Lieutenant General Xu Qiliang, Chief of Staff of the PLA Air Force, led an education and
training delegation to the United States.
July
Lieutenant General Wu Quanxu, a Deputy Chief of General Staff of the PLA, visited
PACOM in Hawaii.
August 5-13
General Fu Quanyou, PLA Chief of General Staff, visited the United States. Secretary of
Defense William Cohen and General John Shalikashvili welcomed Fu at the Pentagon
with a 19-gun salute. General Fu also visited West Point in New York, Fort Bragg in
North Carolina, Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, and
PACOM in Hawaii. General Fu boarded a U.S. nuclear attack submarine and the USS
Blue Ridge, the 7th Fleet’s amphibious command ship.
September 11-15
An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, visited Qingdao. As part of
the occasion, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Archie Clemins, visited
China and met with the Commander of the PLAN North Sea Fleet, Rear Admiral Zhang
Dingfa.
September 14-21
The Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army, Major General Walter Huffman, visited
China, including the Jinan Military Region, to discuss military law.
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September 22-26
The U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, General Dennis Reimer, visited China, along with the
Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy.
They met with Generals Chi Haotian and Fu Quanyou, and visited the 6th Tank Division
and an engineering regiment in the Beijing Military Region, and an artillery unit in the
Nanjing Military Region. They also paid the first U.S. visit to the command headquarters
of the Guangzhou Military Region.
October 6
The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson, visited China and met with
General Chi Haotian, General Fu Quanyou, and Admiral Shi Yunsheng, PLAN
Commander.
October
Lieutenant General He Daoquan, a Vice President of the PLA’s NDU, led a delegation
to the United States (similar to the U.S. Capstone program for new general/flag
officers).
October 29
Jiang Zemin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, CMC Chairman, and
PRC President, visited Washington for a summit with President Clinton. Among a
number of agreements, they agreed to strengthen mil-to-mil contacts to minimize
miscalculations, advance transparency, and strengthen communication. In the “U.S.-PRC
Joint Statement,” the Administration reiterated that it adheres to the “one China”
policy and the principles in the three U.S.-PRC Joint Communiques, but did not
mention the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), the law governing U.S. relations with Taiwan
(including security assistance for its self-defense).
November
Continuing a POW/MIA mission, a team from the U.S. Army’s Central Identification
Laboratory Hawai (CILHI) returned to Maoer Mountain in southern China to recover
additional remains from a B-24 bomber that crashed in 1944.
December 8-19
PACOM Commander, Admiral Joseph Prueher, visited China and met with PRC leader
Jiang Zemin, General Zhang Wannian, General Chi Haotian, General Fu Quanyou,
among others. Prueher enjoyed what the PLA considered the broadest access ever
granted to a visiting military official during one trip. Prueher visited the Jinan, Nanjing,
and Guangzhou Military Regions. He visited the PLA Air Force Flight Test and
Development Center in Cangzhou in Jinan, where he saw a static display of aircraft,
after poor weather conditions apparently precluded a flight demonstration of F-7 and F-
8 fighters. Prueher visited the 179th Infantry Division at the Nanjing Military Region,
watched a live-fire assault demonstration, and toured a farm run by the PLA. At
Zhanjiang, Prueher visited the PLA Navy’s South Sea Fleet, where he observed a
demonstration by the 1st Marine Brigade, saw a new air-cushioned landing craft, and
toured the destroyer Zhuhai. Prueher stressed future PLA-PACOM cooperation in
peacekeeping and disaster relief training.
December 11-12
Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai, a PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff, visited the
Pentagon to hold the 1st U.S.-PLA Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) with Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe. During their summit in October,
Presidents Clinton and Jiang had agreed to hold regular rounds of DCT. The two sides
initialed the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) (“Agreement Between
the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of
National Defense of the People’s Republic of China on Establishing a Consultation
Mechanism to Strengthen Military Maritime Safety”).
December
The U.S. Air Force and Coast Guard conducted search-and-rescue exercises in Hong
Kong (with its Civil Aviation Department), after the British hand-over of Hong Kong to
PRC sovereignty in July 1997. At a news briefing on July 7, 1998, the Pentagon said that
the PLA observed this exercise.
December
A PLA training delegation visited the U.S. Army’s premier National Training Center
(NTC) at Fort Irwin in California.
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1998

January 17-21
Secretary of Defense William Cohen, accompanied by Admiral Prueher (PACOM
Commander), visited China. Cohen signed the “Military Maritime Consultative
Agreement (MMCA),” intended to set up a framework for dialogue on how to minimize
the chances of miscalculation and accidents between U.S. and PLA forces operating at
sea or in the air. He said that Jiang Zemin and General Chi Haotian promised that
China did not plan to transfer to Iran additional anti-ship cruise missiles. The PLA
allowed Cohen to be the first Western official to visit the Beijing Military Region’s Air
Defense Command Center, a step that Cohen called important and symbolic. However,
the PLA denied Cohen’s request to visit China’s National Command Center. Cohen
gave a speech at the PLA’s Academy of Military Science (AMS) and called for expanded
mil-to-mil contacts on: (1) defense environmental issues; (2) strategic nuclear missile
forces; (3) POW/MIA affairs; and (4) humanitarian operations (as part of shifting
contacts from those that build confidence to those that advance real-world
cooperation). Cohen asked the PLA to allow U.S. access to PRC archives to resolve
questions about the fate of U.S. POW/MIAs in the Korean War who might have been in
prison camps in China.
February 16-20
For the first time, the PLA attended the Pacific Area Special Operations Conference
(PASOC) in Hawaii.
March 14-24
A U.S. Army training delegation from the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
based at Fort Monroe, VA, visited China. The Deputy Chief of Staff for Training, Major
General Leroy Goff and Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Major General
David Ohle, led the delegation. They saw the PLA’s training base in Anhui province
under the Nanjing Military Region (similar to the NTC).
March 29-April 10
General Wang Ke, Director of the GLD of the PLA, visited the United States, hosted by
the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions and Technology. General Wang visited
West Point in New York, Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, the Pentagon,
Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia, the Defense Logistics Agency’s
Defense Supply Center in Richmond, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier at Naval
Air Station North Island (San Diego) in California, and PACOM in Hawaii. At the
Pentagon, DOD provided briefings on: organizations for the DOD Logistics Systems,
Logistics Modernization Initiatives, Joint Logistics/Focused Logistics, DOD Outsourcing
Process and Experiences, DOD Military Retirement Systems, and the Army’s Integrated
Training Area Management Program.

In April 1998, the New York Times disclosed that the Justice Department had begun a criminal investigation into
whether U.S. satellite manufacturers, Loral Space and Communications Ltd. and Hughes Electronics Corporation,
violated export control laws. They allegedly provided expertise that China could use to improve its ballistic missiles,
when the companies shared their technical findings with China on the cause of a PRC rocket’s explosion while
launching a U.S.-origin satellite in February 1996. The House set up the “Cox Committee” to investigate the
allegations of corporate misconduct and policy mistakes. The Senate set up a task force. Congress passed legislation to
control satellite exports to China

April 6-10
The PLA went to PACOM’s Military Operations and Law Conference, organized by the
Judge Advocate’s office.
April 29-30
The Defense Department and PLA held pre-talks on the Military Maritime Consultative
Agreement (MMCA).
May 3-5
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Franklin Kramer visited
Beijing.
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May 4-9
The Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, General Michael Ryan, visited China. The PLA
Air Force gave him a tour of Foshan Air Base and allowed him to fly an F-7 fighter and
view an air- refuelable version of an FA-2. However, the PLA Air Force denied General
Ryan’s requests to fly in a SU-27 fighter, to see integration of the SU-27s into the units,
and to see progress on development of the F-10 fighter.
May
A PLA delegation on military law visited the United States.
June 25-July 3
President Clinton traveled to China to hold his second summit with Jiang Zemin,
fol owing the summit in October 1997. They announced that the United States and
China: have a direct presidential “hot line” that was set up in May 1998; will not target
strategic nuclear weapons under their respective control at each other; will hold the
first meeting under the MMCA; will observe exercises of the other based on reciprocity
(meaning the PLA would also issue invitations to U.S. observers); will cooperate in
humanitarian assistance; and will cooperate in military environmental security.
However, China only agreed to study whether to join the Missile Technology Control
Regime (MTCR) and did not agree to open archives to allow U.S. research on
POW/MIAs from the Korean War. In Shanghai on June 30, Clinton stated the so-called
“Three Noes” of non-support for Taiwan’s independence; non-support for two Chinas
or one China and one Taiwan; and non-support for Taiwan’s membership in
international bodies requiring statehood.
July 9-24
At U.S. invitation, the PLA sent two observers to Cope Thunder 98-4, a multinational
air exercise held at Eielson and Elmendorf Air Force Bases in Alaska. The air forces of
the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and Singapore participated in the
exercise, which was designed to sharpen air combat skills, exchange air operational
tactics, and promote closer relations. Pilots flew a variety of aircraft in air-to-air and air-
to-ground combat missions, and combat support missions against a realistic set of
threats. Russia, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines also sent military
observers.
July 14-15
In Beijing, the DOD and PLA held the first plenary meeting under the MMCA.
July 15-20
At U.S. invitation, the PLA Navy sent two observers to RIMPAC 1998, the first time the
PLA observed this multinational naval exercise based in Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
The naval forces of the United States, Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, and South Korea
participated in the exercise, which was designed to enhance their tactical capabilities in
maritime operations. During part of the exercise, the U.S. Navy hosted the PLA Navy’s
representatives on board the USS Coronado (the 3rd Fleet’s command ship), the USS
Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, the USS Paul Hamilton (an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer),
and the USS Antietam (a Ticonderoga-class cruiser).
July 20-26
PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Qian Shugen, visited the United
States.
July
A PRC civilian and military delegation visited the United States, including Pensacola, FL,
to discuss air traffic control with the Federal Aviation Administration, Departments of
Commerce and Defense, and the U.S. Air Force.
August 2-6
The command ship of the 7th Fleet, USS Blue Ridge, and a destroyer, USS John S.
McCain, visited Qingdao. As part of the occasion, Vice Admiral Robert Natter,
Commander of the 7th Fleet, visited and met with Vice Admiral Shi Yunsheng, PLAN
Commander, and Vice Admiral He Pengfei, a PLAN Deputy Commander.
August 16-23
The Commandant of the Army War College, Major General Robert Scales, and the U.S.
Army’s Chief of Military History, Brigadier General John Mountcastle, visited Beijing,
Tianjin, and Nanjing, and discussed the PLA’s historical campaigns.
September 12-20
NDU President, Lieutenant General Richard Chilcoat, visited China, including Hong
Kong, Beijing, Xian, and Dalian.
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September 14-24
General Zhang Wannian, a Vice Chairman of the CMC and highest ranking PLA officer,
visited the United States. However, with General Shalikashvili’s disappointment with the
lack of transparency and reciprocity shown to him by the PLA during his trip to China
in May 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen invoked the “Shali Prohibitions” in
restricting General Zhang’s exposure to the U.S. military during his visits to the
Pentagon, Fort Benning in Georgia, and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. President
Clinton met with General Zhang at the White House. At a news conference on
September 15, 1998, Secretary Cohen announced that he and General Zhang signed an
agreement on cooperation in environmental security (“Joint Statement on the Exchange
of Information by the United States Department of Defense and the Chinese Ministry of
National Defense on Military Environmental Protection”); discussed weapons
proliferation and international terrorism; and agreed to conduct sand table exercises on
disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in 1999, to have a ship visit by the PLA Navy
in 1999, to conduct a seminar on maritime search and rescue, to al ow each other to
observe specific military exercises, to exchange military students, and to allow a PRC
delegation to visit the Cooperative Monitoring Center at the Sandia National
Laboratory. However, Cohen did not announce any progress in fol owing up on U.S.
concerns about Korean War POW/MIA cases, non-targeting of strategic nuclear forces
(involving the Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and the PLA’s Second Artillery), PLA
threats against Taiwan, or weapons nonproliferation. General Zhang cited President
Clinton’s statements in China in June about the U.S. “one China” policy and the “Three
Noes,” while Secretary Cohen stressed peaceful resolution and said that Clinton
reiterated commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act.
October 20-21
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe visited Beijing for the 2nd DCT
and met with Generals Zhang Wannian and Chi Haotian (CMC Vice Chairmen), and
Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai. They discussed global and regional security issues,
defense relations in the Asia-Pacific region, military strategy and modernization, and mil-
to-mil contacts in 1999 (“Gameplan for 1999 U.S.-Sino Defense Exchanges”). The PLA
raised objections to the U.S. plan to field theater missile defense systems.
November 1
Secretary of Defense Cohen visited Hong Kong (on his way to South Korea and Japan)
to underscore the U.S. determination to continue its defense involvement there,
including ship visits, after its hand-over to PRC rule.
November 9-14
PACOM Commander, Admiral Joseph Prueher, visited China, along with Lieutenant
General Carl Fulford (Commander of U.S. Marine Forces Pacific) and Major General
Earl Hailston (Director for Strategic Planning and Policy). They met with General Zhang
Wannian (a CMC Vice Chairman), General Fu Quanyou (Chief of General Staff),
General Wang Ke (GLD Director), and Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai (a Deputy
Chief of General Staff). The PLA arranged for visits to the 47th Group Army based near
Xian and a subordinate air defense brigade, in granting the first foreign military access
to these two commands. Admiral Prueher also visited the PLA Air Force’s 28th Air
Attack Division in Hangzhou and observed ordnance loading of A-5 bombers and a live-
fire demonstration of an air-to-ground attack by A-5s. He then toured a Jiangwei-class
frigate of the PLA Navy in Shanghai.
December 1-4
U.S. and PLA military forces participated in an annual search and rescue exercise (HK
SAREX 98) held by Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department.
December 4
PACOM Commander, Admiral Joseph Prueher, visited Hong Kong and met with Major
Generals Zhou Borong and Xiong Ziren, Deputy Commander and Political Commissar
of PLA forces there.
December 4-8
A U.S. Navy frigate, the USS Vandegrift, visited Shanghai. As part of the port call, Rear
Admiral Harry Highfill, Commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet’s Amphibious Force, met with
Rear Admiral Hou Yuexi, Commander of the Shanghai Naval Base. The PLAN arranged
for Admiral Highfill to tour the PLAN’s Jiangwei-class frigate, the Anqing.
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December 9-11
Military maritime consultative talks (under the MMCA) between the U.S. Navy and
PLAN took place near San Diego, CA. The PLAN delegation, led by Captain Shen Hao,
Director of the PLAN Operations Department, stayed at the Naval Amphibious Base at
Coronado and toured a U.S. destroyer (USS Stetham) and the U.S. Navy’s Maritime
Ship Handling Simulator at the San Diego Naval Station.
1999

At the end of 1998 and start of 1999, the New York Times and Wal Street Journal disclosed that the Cox Committee
was looking at the Clinton Administration’s investigation that began in 1995 into whether China obtained secret U.S.
nuclear weapons data, in addition to missile technology associated with satellite launches. On April 21, 1999, the
Director of Central Intelligence confirmed that “China obtained by espionage classified U.S. nuclear weapons
information that probably accelerated its program to develop future nuclear weapons.” However, it was uncertain
whether China obtained documentation or blueprints, and China also benefitted from information obtained from a
wide variety of sources, including open sources (unclassified information) and China’s own efforts.


January 19-26
The Director of the Defense POW/MIA Office, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Robert Jones, visited China to seek the PLA’s cooperation in accounting for U.S.
POW/MIAs from the Korean War, specifically seeking U.S. access to PLA archives,
veterans, and a film with information about POW camps in China.
March
President of the PLA’s NDU, General Xing Shizhong, visited Washington and gave a
speech at the U.S. NDU at Fort McNair on March 18, 1999. The Pentagon arranged for
General Xing to visit Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, receive a briefing on the U.S.
Navy’s “Network Centric Warfare” in Rhode Island, visit Fort Hood in Texas and
receive a briefing on Task Force XXI (an experimental warfighting force in the Army),
and see the Air Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. However, the
Defense Department denied the PLA delegation’s access to observe the Red Flag
combat training exercise at Nellis Air Force Base.


In April 1999, under congressional pressure, the Clinton Administration approved a potential sale of long-range early
warning radars to Taiwan.


On May 7, 1999, U.S.-led NATO forces bombed the PRC’s embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, having mistakenly
targeted it as a military supply facility belonging to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic whose Serbian forces
attacked Kosovo. Despite President Clinton’s apology, the PRC angrily suspended mil-to-mil contacts, allowed
protesters to attack violently U.S. diplomatic facilities in China, and denied ship visits to Hong Kong by the U.S. Navy
until September 1999. In July 1999, the United States agreed to pay $4.5 million in compensation for PRC casualties. In
FY2001 legislation, Congress appropriated $28 million to compensate for damages to China’s embassy.
May
A U.S. Navy working group under the MMCA visited Qingdao to discuss international
standards of communication at sea.
May 9-20
A PRC delegation that included PLA officers visited the United States to discuss air
traffic control. On May 18, 1999, they visited Edwards Air Force Base in California and
received a briefing on daily planning, integration, and control of civilian and military
operations.


In May 1999, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1999 (P.L. 105-261), Secretary of Defense
Cohen submitted the unclassified version of the “Report to Congress on Theater Missile Defense Architecture
Options for the Asia-Pacific Region.” Congress required a report on theater missile defense systems that could be
transferred to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, which the conference report called “key regional allies.”


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On July 9, 1999, Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui characterized the cross-strait relationship as “special state-to-state
ties,” sparking military tensions with the PLA. The Clinton Administration responded that Lee’s statement was not
helpful and reaffirmed the “one China” policy. The PLA flew fighters across the “center” line of the Taiwan Strait and
conducted exercises along the coast opposite Taiwan. In early September, CMC Vice Chairman General Zhang
Wannian personally directed a major, joint landing exercise. A tragic earthquake in Taiwan on September 21 defused
the tensions


November 19-21
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbel and
Major General (USMC) Michael Hagee, PACOM’s Director for Strategic Planning and
Policy (J5), visited Beijing to discuss resuming military contacts.
December 1-4
U.S. military and PLA forces participated in Hong Kong’s annual search and rescue
exercise.
2000

January 24-26
Resuming contacts, Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai (a Deputy Chief of General
Staff) visited Washington to hold the 3rd DCT with Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy Slocombe. They discussed the program for mil-to-mil contacts in 2000,
international security issues, U.S. strategy in Asia, the PLA’s missile buildup, Taiwan,
missile defense, weapons proliferation, and North Korea. Xiong met with Secretary of
Defense Cohen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Henry Shelton, Deputy National
Security Advisor James Steinberg, Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, and State
Department Senior Advisor John Holum.
February 17-18
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Walter Slocombe, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Ralston,
and Deputy National Security Advisor James Steinberg visited Beijing (after visiting
Tokyo) for a strategic dialogue. They met with CMC Vice Chairman General Zhang
Wannian, who raised the Taiwan issue, including U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.


On February 21, 2000, ahead of Taiwan’s presidential election on March 18, 2000, the PRC issued its second Taiwan
White Paper, which declared a threat to use force against Taiwan if a serious development leads to Taiwan’s
separation from China in any name, if there is foreign invasion or occupation of Taiwan, or if Taiwan’s government
indefinitely refuses to negotiate national unification (cal ed the “Three Ifs”). Under Secretary of Defense Slocombe,
who was just in Beijing but was given no indication that the PRC would issue the White Paper and the threat,
responded forcefully on February 22 by warning that China would face “incalculable consequences” if it used force
against Taiwan.


February 27-March 2
PACOM Commander, Admiral Dennis Blair, visited China and discussed tensions over
Taiwan with Chief of General Staff, General Fu Quanyou, and General Chi Haotian.
March 10-12
Secretary of Defense William Cohen visited Hong Kong and discussed issues such as
port cal s by the U.S. Navy and the prevention of trans-shipments of advanced U.S.
technology to mainland China.
March 27-29
A working group under the MMCA held a planning meeting in China.
April 14-22
PLAN Commander, Admiral Shi Yunsheng, visited the United States, coinciding with an
annual round of U.S.-Taiwan arms sales talks in Washington. Admiral Shi met with
Secretary of Defense Cohen, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard
Myers, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson.


In April 2000, during a round of annual arms sales talks, the Clinton Administration approved a request from Taiwan’s
military to purchase AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs).


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May 28-June 3
PACOM in Hawai hosted the second plenary meeting under the MMCA. PACOM’s
Director for Strategic Planning and Policy (J5), Major General Michael Hagee (USMC),
and the PLA’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Wang Yucheng, led the proceedings.
They reviewed a mutually-produced document, “A Study on Sino-U.S. Maritime
Navigational Safety, Including Communications.”
June 13-14
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Frank Kramer visited
Beijing and met with Major General Zhan Maohai, Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai,
and General Chi Haotian to plan Secretary of Defense Cohen’s visit to China.
June 13-21
Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), Lieutenant General Daniel
Christman, visited China. He met with General Chi Haotian and visited the PLA’s
Armored Force Engineering Academy, where he was the first American to have access
to a PLA Type-96 main battle tank.
June 18-23
Nanjing Military Region Commander Liang Guanglie led a PLA delegation to visit
PACOM in Hawaii and met with Admiral Dennis Blair.


On July 10, 2000, responding to objections from the Clinton Administration and Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak told PRC ruler Jiang Zemin in a letter that Israel canceled the nearly completed sale of the Phalcon airborne
early warning system to the PLA. Prime Minister Barak informed President Clinton the next day during peace talks at
Camp David, MD.


July 11-15
Secretary of Defense William Cohen visited Beijing and Shanghai. Cohen met with
President Jiang Zemin and Generals Chi Haotian, Zhang Wannian, and Fu Quanyou.
Cohen did not visit any PLA bases. Cohen referred to the promise made by PRC
President Jiang Zemin during Cohen’s previous visit to China in January 1998 and said
that the PRC has abided by that agreement not to ship cruise missiles to Iran. Cohen
and General Chi signed an “Agreement on the Exchange of Environmental Protection
Research and Development Information” and discussed the need for cross-strait
dialogue, weapons nonproliferation, and regional stability. The PRC objected to U.S.
plans for missile defense and pressure on Israel to cancel the sale of the Phalcon
airborne early warning system to the PLA, concerning which Israel notified China just
before Cohen’s visit. Cohen offered to fund PLA students at PACOM’s APCSS in
Honolulu. Regarding Taiwan, General Chi said that China would adopt a wait and see
posture toward the leader of Taiwan (referring to Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic
Progressive Party, who won the presidential election on March 18, 2000, bringing an
end to the Kuomintang (KMT)’s 55 years of rule in Taiwan). Cohen said that the
Administration viewed Chen as offering hope for cross-strait reconciliation. In Shanghai,
Cohen stepped out of the narrow mil-to-mil context and met with Wang Daohan,
chairman of the PRC’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
Cohen said that Chen showed flexibility after becoming president and that there was a
window of opportunity for changes.
July 23-August 4
A delegation of the PLA Medical Department visited the United States.
July 31-August 5
Admiral Thomas Fargo, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, visited Beijing and
Qingdao in conjunction with the visit of the U.S. Navy’s guided-missile cruiser USS
Chancellorsville in Qingdao (August 2-5).
August 21-September 2
President of the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), General Wang Zuxun,
visited the United States. There is no counterpart in the U.S. military with which to set
up reciprocal exchanges. The AMS delegation included the Directors of the
Departments of Strategic Studies, Operational and Tactical Studies, and Foreign Military
Studies. They visited the Pentagon; Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia; West
Point in New York; Army War College in Pennsylvania; Army’s Training and Doctrine
Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe in Virginia; and PACOM in Hawaii. The Joint
Forces Command provided unclassified tours of its Joint Training Directorate (J-7) and
Joint Training Analysis Simulation Center, but not the Joint Experimentation Battle Lab.
September 5-18
PLA Navy ships (the Luhu-class destroyer Qingdao and Fuqing-class oiler Taicang)
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visited Pearl Harbor, HI (September 5-8) and Naval Station Everett, near Seattle, WA
(September 14-18). In Hawaii, the visitors toured the U.S. destroyer USS O’Kane.
October
For the first time, the PLA invited two U.S. military personnel to attend the one-month
International Security Symposium at the NDU in Beijing. (Subsequent invitations
dropped required fees.)
October 10-18
The PLA participated in a visit to the United States by a Humanitarian Disaster Relief
Sandtable Planning Team.
October 12-13
Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig visited Shanghai, in the first visit by a U.S.
Secretary of the Navy to China. His visit was curtailed because of the attack on the USS
Cole in a Yemeni harbor on October 12, 2000.
October 24-November 4
CMC Member and Director of the General Political Department (GPD)—the top
political commissar, General Yu Yongbo, visited the United States. He was hosted by
Under Secretary of Defense for Readiness Bernard Rostker. General Yu’s delegation
visited the Pentagon and met with Secretary of Defense Cohen; West Point in New
York; Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC; Fort Jackson in South Carolina;
Patrick Air Force Base in Florida; and PACOM in Hawaii.
November 2-6
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry Shelton, visited China, at the
invitation of PLA Chief of General Staff, General Fu Quanyou. The PLA allowed General
Shelton to observe a brigade exercising at the PLA’s Combined Arms Training Center
in the Nanjing Military Region. Shelton stressed the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan
question.
November 2-12
A Deputy Chief of Staff of the PLA Navy, Rear Admiral Zhang Zhannan, led a delegation
from the Naval Command Academy (in Nanjing) to visit Newport News, RI (Naval War
College); Washington, DC (including a meeting with the Secretary of the Navy);
Monterey, CA (Naval Post-Graduate School); and Honolulu, HI (Pacific Command,
including a tour aboard an Aegis-equipped cruiser).
November 12-19
A PLA NDU delegation (similar to the U.S. Capstone program) visited the United
States.
November 28-December 2 Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe visited Beijing to hold the 4th
DCT with PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff Xiong Guangkai. Slocombe also met with
Generals Chi Haotian and Fu Quanyou and visited the PLA Navy’s North Sea Fleet in
Qingdao. The U.S. and PRC sides discussed sharp differences over Taiwan and missile
defense, the program for mil-to-mil contacts in 2001, Korea, and weapons proliferation.
December 3-9
A Working Group under the MMCA held its second meeting (in China).
December 5-8
U.S. military and PLA forces participated in Hong Kong’s annual search and rescue
exercise and worked together in a demonstration.


At the end of December 2000 in New York, PLA Senior Colonel Xu Junping, who closely handled U.S.-PRC military
relations, defected to the United States and presented an intelligence loss for the PLA (reported Far Eastern Economic
Review, April 5, 2001).


2001

February 9-23
Major General Wang Shouye, Director of the GLD’s Capital Construction and Barracks
Department, led a delegation on military environmental protection matters to the
United States. They visited Washington, DC; Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Bliss in Texas;
the “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona; Las Vegas in Nevada; and
PACOM in Hawaii.
March 14-17
PACOM Commander, Adm. Dennis Blair, visited Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.
PACOM said that Blair’s trip was intended to discuss military activities and plans of the
PLA and PACOM, exchange views and enhance mutual understanding, discuss Taiwan,
and stress the inclusion rather than exclusion of China in multilateral activities.
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March 23-26
The command ship of the 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge, made a port call to Shanghai. In
conjunction with the ship visit, Vice Admiral James Metzger, Commander of the 7th
Fleet, visited Shanghai and met with Vice Admiral Zhao Guojun, Commander of the
PLAN’s East Sea Fleet.


On March 24, 2001, in the Yel ow Sea near South Korea, a PLA Navy Jianghu III-class frigate passed as close as 100
yards to a U.S. surveillance ship, the USNS Bowditch, and a PLA reconnaissance plane shadowed it. The PLA’s
harassment of the USS Bowditch continued for months.


On April 1, 2001, a PLA Navy F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane over the South China
Sea. Upon surviving the collision, the EP-3’s crew made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan island. The PLA
detained the 24 U.S. Navy personnel for 11 days. Instead of acknowledging that the PLA had started aggressive
interceptions of U.S. reconnaissance flights in December 2000 and apologizing for the accident, top PRC ruler Jiang
Zemin demanded an apology and compensation from the United States. The United States did not transport the
damaged EP-3 out of China until July 3.


On April 24, 2001, during arms sales talks in Washington, President Bush approved a request from Taiwan’s military to
purchase weapons systems including diesel-electric submarines; P-3 anti-submarine warfare aircraft; and destroyers
(approving four Kidd-class destroyers). The Bush Administration also decided to brief Taiwan on the PAC-3 missile
defense missile. The next day, the President said in an interview that if the PRC attacked Taiwan, he has an obligation
to do “whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.”


September 14-15
DOD and the PLA held a special meeting under the MMCA (in Guam) to discuss how
to avoid clashes like the one involving the EP-3. The Commander of U.S. Naval Forces
Marianas, Rear Admiral Tom Fellin, led the U.S. delegation. The issues for U.S. side
were: principles of safe flight and navigation for military activities conducted on the high
seas, international airspace, and EEZs; and safety of ships and aircraft exercising the
right of distressed entry. The Deputy Director of the Foreign Affairs Office, Major
General Zhang Bangdong, led the PLA delegation.
December 5-7
A Working Group under the MMCA met in Beijing.
2002

April 10-12
The third plenary meeting under the MMCA was held in Shanghai. PACOM’s Director
for Strategic Planning and Policy (J5), Rear Admiral William Sullivan, and the PLA Navy’s
Deputy Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Zhou Borong, led the delegations.
April 27-May 1
PRC Vice President Hu Jintao visited PACOM and was welcomed by Admiral Dennis
Blair. In Washington, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld welcomed Hu with an honor
cordon at the Pentagon. PRC media reported that Rumsfeld and Hu reached a
consensus to resume military exchanges, but the Pentagon’s spokeswoman said that
they agreed to have their representatives talk about how to proceed on mil-to-mil
contacts, which were still approved on a case-by-case basis. Vice President Hu also met
with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
May 14-28
The PLA sent observers to Cobra Gold 2002 in Thailand, a combined exercise involving
forces of the United States, Thailand, and Singapore.
June 26-27
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman visited
Beijing to discuss a resumption of military exchanges. He met with General Xiong
Guangkai and General Chi Haotian, who said that the PRC was ready to improve
military relations with the United States. Secretary Rumsfeld told reporters on June 21,
2002, that Rodman would discuss the principles of transparency, reciprocity, and
consistency for mil-to-mil contacts that Rumsfeld stressed to Vice President Hu Jintao.
July 15-29
In the first POW/MIA mission in China on a Cold War case, a team from the Army’s
Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI) went to northeastern Jilin province
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to search for, but did not find, the remains of two CIA pilots whose C-47 plane was
shot down in 1952 during the Korean War.
August 6-8
The PLA and DOD held a meeting under the MMCA in Hawaii.
August- September
In a POW/MIA recovery mission, a team from the Army’s Central Identification
Laboratory in Hawai (CILHI) recovered remains of the crew of a C-46 cargo plane that
crashed in March 1944 in Tibet while flying the “Hump” route over the Himalaya
mountains back to India from Kunming, China, during World War II. The two-month
operation excavated a site at 15,600 ft.
October 8-14
The President of NDU, Vice Admiral Paul Gaffney, visited Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, and
Shanghai. He met with CMC Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Chi Haotian, Deputy
Chief of General Staff Xiong Guangkai, and NDU President Xing Shizhong.
October 25
President Bush held a summit with PRC President Jiang Zemin at his ranch in Crawford,
TX. Concerning security issues, President Bush said they discussed “the threat posed by
the Iraqi regime,” “concern about the acknowledgment of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea of a program to enrich uranium,” counterterrorism (calling China an
“ally”), weapons proliferation, Taiwan, and a “candid, constructive, and cooperative”
relationship with contacts at many levels in coming months, including “a new dialogue
on security issues.” Jiang offered a vague proposal to reconsider the PLA’s missile
buildup in return for restraints in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
November 24
In the first U.S. naval port call to mainland China since the EP-3 crisis, the destroyer
USS Paul F. Foster visited Qingdao.
November 30-December 8 Lieutenant General Gao Jindian, a Vice President of the NDU, led a Capstone-like
delegation to the United States.
December 4-6
The Maritime and Air Safety Working Group under the MMCA met in Qingdao. The
U.S. team toured the destroyer Qingdao.
December 9-10
Following a two-year hiatus after the previous Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) in
December 2000, the Pentagon held the 5th DCT (the first under the Bush
Administration) and kept U.S. representation at the same level as that under the
Clinton Administration. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith met with
General Xiong Guangkai, a Deputy Chief of General Staff, at the Pentagon. The PLA
played up the status of Xiong and the DCT, calling the meeting “defense consultations
at the vice ministerial level.” At U.S. urging, Xiong brought a proposal for mil-to-mil
exchanges in 2003. Feith told reporters that he could not claim progress in gaining
greater reciprocity and transparency in the exchanges, although they had a discussion of
these issues. They did not discuss Jiang’s offer on the PLA’s missile buildup. Feith also
said that DOD had no major change in its attitude toward the PLA since the EP-3 crisis.
Secretary Rumsfeld did not meet with Xiong. Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz
and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice met with Xiong on December 10.
December 12-17
PACOM Commander, Admiral Thomas Fargo, visited Chengdu, Nanjing, Ningbo,
Beijing, and Shanghai. The PLA showed him a live-fire exercise conducted by a reserve
unit of an infantry division in Sichuan. General Liang Guanglie (Chief of General Staff)
met with Admiral Fargo.
2003

March 25-29
The Director of the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO), Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense Jerry Jennings, visited China and met with officials of the PLA, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, and Red Cross Society of China. Jennings said that the PRC has records
that may well hold “the key” to helping DOD to resolve many of the cases of American
POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Cold War. While
the PRC has been “very cooperative” in U.S. investigations of losses from World War II
and Vietnam, Jennings said both sides suggested ways to “enhance cooperation” on
Korean War cases and acknowledged that there is limited time. Jennings sought access
to information in PRC archives at the national and provincial levels, assistance from
PRC civilian researchers to conduct archival research on behalf of the United States,
information from the Dandong Museum relating to two F-86 pilots who are Korean
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War MIAs, and resumption of contact with PLA veterans from the Korean War to
build on information related to the PRC operation of POW camps during the war.
April 9-11
In Hawaii, in the fourth plenary meeting under the MMCA, PACOM’s Director for
Strategic Planning and Policy (J5), Rear Admiral William Sullivan, met with PLA Navy’s
Deputy Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Zhou Borong.
April 25-May 4
The Commandant of the PLA’s NDU, Lieutenant General Pei Huailiang, led a delegation
to visit the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD; U.S. NDU in Washington, DC;
Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, CA; and PACOM in Honolulu, HI.
May 15-29
The PLA sent observers to Cobra Gold 2003 in Thailand, a combined exercise involving
the armed forces of the United States, Thailand, and Singapore.
August 19-21
The Military Maritime and Air Safety Working Group under the MMCA met in Hawaii.
The PLA delegation met with PACOM’s Chief of Staff for the Director for Strategic
Planning and Policy, Brigadier General (USAF) Charles Neeley, and toured the U.S.
Aegis-equipped cruiser USS Lake Erie.
August 25
The PLA arranged for 27 military observers from the United States and other countries
to be the first foreign military observers to visit China’s largest combined arms training
base (in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) and watch an exercise that involved
elements of force-on-force, live-fire, and joint operational maneuvers conducted by the
Beijing Military Region.
September 22-26
In the first foreign naval ship visit to Zhanjiang, the cruiser USS Cowpens and frigate
USS Vandegrift visited this homeport of the PLAN’s South Sea Fleet. Its Chief of Staff,
Rear Admiral Hou Yuexi, welcomed Rear Admiral James Kelly, Commander of Carrier
Group Five, who also visited.
October 22-25
The PLAN destroyer Shenzhen and supply ship Qinghai Lake visited Guam.
October 24-November 1
CMC Vice Chairman and PRC Defense Minister, General Cao Gangchuan, visited
PACOM in Hawaii, West Point in New York, and Washington, DC, where he met with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. General
Cao stressed that Taiwan was the most important issue. The PLA sought the same
treatment for General Cao as that given to General Chi Haotian when he visited
Washington as defense minister in 1996 and was granted a meeting with President
Clinton. In the end, President Bush dropped by for five minutes when General Cao met
with National Security Advisor Rice at the White House. Rumsfeld did not attend the
PRC Embassy’s banquet for Cao. At PACOM, Cao met with Admiral Thomas Fargo,
toured the cruiser USS Lake Erie.
November 12-19
Nanjing Military Region Commander, Lieutenant General Zhu Wenquan, visited
PACOM where he met with Admiral Thomas Fargo and boarded the destroyer USS
Russell. LTG Zhu also visited San Diego, where he toured the carrier USS Nimitz and
the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. He also stopped in Washington, DC, and West Point
in New York.


On November 18, 2003, a PRC official on Taiwan affairs who is a PLA major general, Wang Zaixi, issued a threat to
use force against the perceived open promotion of Taiwan independence. Campaigning for re-election on March 20,
2004, Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian was calling for controversial referendums and a new Taiwan constitution. On
the eve of his visit to Washington, PRC Premier Wen Jiabao threatened that China would “pay any price to safeguard
the unity of the motherland.” On December 3, PRC media reported the warnings of a PLA major general and a senior
colonel at AMS, who wrote that Chen’s use of referendums to seek independence will push Taiwan into the “abyss of
war.” They warned that China would be willing to pay the costs of war, including boycotts of the 2008 Olympics in
Beijing, drops in foreign investment, setbacks in foreign relations, wartime damage to the southeastern coast,
economic costs, and PLA casualties. Appearing with Premier Wen at the White House on December 9, 2003,
President Bush criticized Chen, saying that “we oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change
the status quo. And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make
decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose.”


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2004

January 13-16
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General (USAF) Richard Myers, visited
Beijing, the first visit to China by the highest ranking U.S. military officer since
November 2000. General Myers met with Generals Guo Boxiong and Cao Gangchuan
(CMC Vice Chairmen) and General Liang Guanglie (PLA Chief of General Staff). CMC
Chairman Jiang Zemin met briefly with Myers, echoing President Bush’s brief meeting
with General Cao. The PLA generals and Jiang stressed Taiwan as their critical issue.
General Myers stressed that the United States has a responsibility under the TRA to
assist Taiwan’s ability to defend itself and to ensure that there will be no temptation to
use force. Myers pointed to the PLA’s missile buildup as a threat to Taiwan. The PLA
allowed Myers to be the first foreign visitor to tour the Beijing Aerospace Control
Center, headquarters of its space program. Myers discussed advancing mil-to-mil
contacts, including search and rescue exercises, educational exchanges, ship visits, and
senior-level exchanges (including a visit by General Liang Guanglie). Myers also indicated
a U.S. expectation of exchanges between younger officers, saying that interactions at
the lower level can improve mutual understanding in the longer run.
February 10-11
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith visited Beijing to hold the 6th DCT
with General Xiong Guangkai, a meeting which the PLA side claimed to be “defense
consultations at the vice ministerial level.” Feith met with General Cao Gangchuan (a
CMC Vice Chairman and Defense Minister), who raised extensively the issue of Taiwan
and the referendums. Feith said he discussed North Korean nuclear weapons, Taiwan,
and maritime safety. He stressed that avoiding a war in the Taiwan Strait was in the
interests of both countries and that belligerent rhetoric and the PLA’s missile buildup
do not help to reduce cross-strait tensions. The PRC’s Foreign Ministry said that the
two sides discussed a program for mil-to-mil contacts in 2004. The Department of
Defense proposed a defense telephone link (DTL), or “hotline,” with the PLA.
February 24-28
The USS Blue Ridge, the 7th Fleet’s command ship, visited Shanghai. In conjunction with
the port call, Vice Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of the 7th Fleet, met with Rear
Admiral Zhao Guojun, Commander of the East Sea Fleet.
March 9-11
The Maritime and Air Safety Working Group under the MMCA met in Shanghai. The
U.S. visitors met with Rear Admiral Zhou Borong, Deputy Chief of Staff of the PLAN,
and toured the frigate Lianyungang.
May 3-June 29
A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) traveled to
northeastern city of Dandong near China’s border with North Korea on an operation
to recover remains of a pilot whose F-86 fighter was shot down during the Korean
War. In following up on an initial operation in July 2002 on a Cold War case, the U.S.
team also went to northeastern Jilin province to recover remains of two CIA pilots
whose C-47 transport plane was shot down in 1952.
July 21-25
PACOM Commander, Admiral Thomas Fargo, visited China and met with General Liu
Zhenwu (Guangzhou Military Region Commander), Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing,
General Liang Guanglie (Chief of General Staff), and General Xiong Guangkai (a Deputy
Chief of General Staff), who opposed U.S. arms sales and defense cooperation with
Taiwan. Fargo said that policy on Taiwan has not changed.
August-September
DPMO sent a team to Tibet to recover wreckage from a site where a C-46 aircraft
crashed during World War II.
September 24-27
The USS Cushing, a destroyer with the Pacific Fleet, visited Qingdao for a port visit.
October 24-30
Reciprocating General Myers’ visit to China, PLA Chief of General Staff, General Liang
Guanglie, visited the United States, including the Joint Forces Command and Joint
Forces Staff College at Norfolk; the carrier USS George Washington and the destroyer
USS Laboon at Norfolk Naval Base; Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base;
Joint Task Force-Civil Support at Fort Monroe; Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning;
Washington, D.C.; and Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. In Washington,
General Liang held meetings with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld saw General Liang briefly. Talks covered
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military exchanges, the Six-Party Talks on North Korea, and Taiwan.
November 22-23
DPMO held Technical Talks in Beijing on POW/MIA recovery operations in 2005.
2005

January 30- February 1
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless visited Beijing to hold a Special
Policy Dialogue for the first time, as a forum to discuss policy problems separate from
safety concerns under the MMCA. Meeting with Zhang Bangdong, Director of the PLA’s
Foreign Affairs Office, Lawless tried to negotiate an agreement on military maritime and
air safety. He also discussed a program of military contacts in 2005, the U.S. proposal of
February 2004 for a “hotline,” Taiwan, the DCTs, PLA’s buildup, and a possible visit by
Secretary Rumsfeld. Lawless also met with General Xiong Guangkai.
February 23-25
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Jerry Jennings visited
Beijing and Dandong to discuss China’s assistance in resolving cases from the Vietnam
War and World War II. He also continued to seek access to China’s documents related
to POW camps that China managed during the Korean War. At Dandong, Jennings
announced the recovery of the remains of a U.S. Air Force pilot who was missing-in-
action from the Korean War.
April 29-30
General Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of General Staff, visited Washington to hold the
7th DCT with Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith. They continued to discuss the
U.S. proposal for a “hotline” and an agreement on military maritime and air safety with
the PLA and also talked about military exchanges, international security issues, PLA
modernization, U.S. military redeployments, and energy. Xiong also met with Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and
Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns.
July 7-8
The Department of Defense and the PLA held an annual MMCA meeting in Qingdao, to
discuss unresolved maritime and air safety issues under the MMCA.
July 18-22
General Liu Zhenwu, Commander of the PLA’s Guangzhou Military Region, visited
Hawaii, as hosted by Admiral William Fallon, Commander of the Pacific Command.
Among visits to parts of the Pacific Command, General Liu toured the USS Chosin, a
Ticonderoga-class cruiser.
September 6-11
Admiral William Fallon, Commander of the Pacific Command, visited Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou, and Hong Kong at the invitation of General Liu Zhenwu, Guangzhou
Military Region Commander. As Admiral Fallon said he sought to deepen the
“exceedingly limited military interaction,” he met with high-ranking PLA Generals Guo
Boxiong (CMC Vice Chairman) and Liang Guanglie (Chief of General Staff). Fallon
discussed military contacts between junior officers; PLA observers at U.S. exercises;
exchanges with more transparency and reciprocity; cooperation in disaster relief and
control of avian flu; and reducing tensions.
September 13-16
The destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur visited Qingdao, hosted by the PLA Navy’s North Sea
Fleet.
September 27
U.S. and other foreign military observers (from 24 countries) observed a PLA exercise
(“North Sword 2005”) at the PLA’s Zhurihe training base in Inner Mongolia in the
Beijing MR.
October 18-20
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Beijing, China. He met with General Cao
Gangchuan (including a visit to the office in the August 1st [Bayi] Building of this CMC
Vice Chairman and Defense Minister), General Guo Boxiong (a CMC Vice Chairman),
General Jing Zhiyuan (commander of the Second Artillery, or missile corps, in the first
foreign visit to its headquarters), and Hu Jintao (Communist Party General Secretary,
CMC Chairman, and PRC president). General Jing introduced the Second Artillery and
repeated the PRC’s declared “no first use” nuclear weapons policy. Rumsfeld’s
discussions covered military exchanges; greater transparency from the PLA, including its
spending; China’s rising global influence; Olympics in Beijing in 2008; and China’s
manned space program. Rumsfeld also held round-tables at the Central Party School
and Academy of Military Science. The PLA denied a U.S. request to visit its command
center in the Western Hills, outside Beijing, and continued to deny agreement on a
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“hot line.” The PLA did not agree to open archives believed to hold documents on
American POWs in the Korean War, an issue raised by Assistant Secretary of Defense
Peter Rodman and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless.
November 13-19
The PLA sent its first delegation of younger, mid-ranking brigade and division
commanders and commissars to the United States. Led by Major General Zhang
Wenda, Deputy Director of the GSD’s General Office, they visited units of the Pacific
Command in Hawaii and Alaska.
December 8-9
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Lawless visited Beijing to discuss the military
exchange program in 2006 and military maritime security. He met with the Director of
the PLA’s Foreign Affairs Office, Major General Zhang Bangdong, and Deputy Chief of
General Staff, General Xiong Guangkai.
December 12-15
A delegation from the PLA’s NDU, led by Rear Admiral Yang Yi, Director of the
Institute for Strategic Studies, visited Washington (NDU, Pentagon, and State
Department).
December 13
Following up on Rumsfeld’s visit, a DPMO delegation visited Beijing to continue to seek
access to China’s archives believed to contain information on American POWs during
the Korean War. The delegation also discussed POW/MIA investigations and recovery
operations in China in 2006.
2006

January 9-13
PLA GLD delegation representing all military regions visited PACOM (hosted by Col.
William Carrington, J1) to discuss personnel management, especially U.S. vs. PLA
salaries.
February 27-28
A PACOM military medical delegation visited China.
March 13-18
To reciprocate the PLA’s first mid-ranking delegation’s visit in November 2005,
PACOM’s J5 (Director for Strategic Planning and Policy), Rear Admiral Michael Tracy,
led a delegation of 20 O-5 and O-6 officers from PACOM’s Army, Marines, Navy, and
Air Force commands to Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Ningbo.
April 9-15
NDU President Lt. Gen. Michael Dunn and Commandant of the Industrial College of
the Armed Forces (ICAF) Maj. Gen. Frances Wilson visited Beijing, Nanjing, and
Shanghai.
May 9-15
PACOM Commander, Admiral William Fallon, visited Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, and
cities close to the border with North Korea, including Shenyang. He met with a CMC
Vice Chairman, General Cao Gangchuan, and a Deputy Chief of General Staff, General
Ge Zhenfeng, and discussed issues that included the U.S.-Japan alliance and real PLA
spending. Fallon was the first U.S. official to visit the 39th Group Army, where he saw a
showcase unit (346th regiment). At the 28th Air Division near Hangzhou, he was the first
U.S. official to see a new FB-7 fighter. He invited the PLA to observe the U.S. “Valiant
Shield” exercise in June near Guam.
May 15-26
A PLA delegation observed “Cobra Gold,” a multilateral exercise hosted by Thailand
and PACOM.
June 8
Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman visited Beijing for the 8th DCT, the first
time at this lower level and without Xiong Guangkai. He talked with Major General
Zhang Qinsheng, Assistant Chief of General Staff, about exchanges, weapons
nonproliferation, counterterrorism, Olympics, invitation to the Second Artillery
commander to visit, etc.
June 16-23
A PLA and civilian delegation of 12, led by Rear Admiral Zhang Leiyu, a PLAN Deputy
Chief of Staff and submariner, observed the U.S. “Valiant Shield” exercise that involved
three carrier strike groups near Guam. They boarded the USS Ronald Reagan and visited
Guam’s air and naval bases.
June 27-30
USS Blue Ridge (7th Fleet’s command ship) visited Shanghai.
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July 16-22
The highest ranking PLA commander, CMC Vice Chairman Guo Boxiong, visited San
Diego (3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and carrier USS Ronald Reagan), Washington, and West
Point, at Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s invitation. General Guo agreed to hold a
combined naval search and rescue exercise (a U.S. proposal for the past two years in
the context of the MMCA talks) and to al ow U.S. access to PLA archives with
information on U.S. POW/MIAs from the Korean War (a U.S. request for many years).
Guo personally gave Rumsfeld information on his friend, Lt. j.g. James Deane, a Navy
pilot who was shot down by the PLA Air Force in 1956. Guo also had meetings with
Representatives Mark Steven Kirk and Rick Larsen (co-chairs of the U.S.-China
Working Group), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley, and President Bush briefly dropped by during the latter. During the
meetings and an address at the National Defense University, General Guo discussed
North Korea’s July 4 missile tests, critically citing the U.N. Security Council resolution
condemning the tests (remarks not reported by PRC press). In contrast to the meeting
in Beijing with General Myers in January 2004, Taiwan was not a heated issue in General
Guo’s talks with Rumsfeld and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter
Pace.
August 7-11
MMCA plenary and working group meetings held in Hawaii. The two sides established
communication protocols, planned communications and maneuver exercises, and
scripted the two phases of the planned search and rescue exercise.
August 21-23
PACOM Commander, Admiral Fallon, visited Harbin.
September 6-20
The PLAN destroyer Qingdao visited Pearl Harbor (and held the first U.S.-PLA basic
exercise in the use of tactical signals with the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Chung-Hoon) and
San Diego (and held the first bilateral search and rescue exercise (SAREX), under the
MMCA, with the destroyer USS Shoup).
September 10-21
In the second such visit after 1998, a huge 58-member PLA Air Force delegation, with
its own PLAAF aircraft, visited Elmendorf AFB (saw an F-15C fighter) in Alaska, Air
Force Academy and Air Force Space Command in Colorado, Maxwell AFB and Air War
College in Alabama, Andrews AFB in Maryland, the Pentagon in D.C., McGuire AFB and
Atlantic City in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York.
September 20-30
DPMO Team visited China to discuss POW/MIA concerns.
September 26
USS Chancellorsville made a port visit to Qingdao.
September 26-28
Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Ryan Henry, visited Beijing and
Xian. He briefed PLA General Ge Zhenfeng, Deputy Chief of General Staff, on the
Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) of February 2006.
October 8-13
A U.S. delegation from the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Installations and Environment visited China to discuss military environmental issues.
October 20-27
A delegation of NDU operational commanders visited the United States.


On October 26, 2006, a PLAN Song-class diesel electric submarine approached undetected to within five miles of the
aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk near Okinawa. PACOM Commander Admiral Fallon argued that the incident showed
the need for military-to-military engagement to avoid escalations of tensions.


October 30-November 4
PLA mid-level, division and brigade commanders (senior colonels and colonels) visited
Honolulu, toured the destroyer USS Preble in San Diego, and observed training at Camp
Pendleton Marine Base. They were denied requests to have closer looks at an aircraft
carrier and Strykers.
November 12-19
Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Adm. Gary Roughead, visited Beijing, Shanghai, and
Zhanjiang, overseeing second phase of bilateral search and rescue exercise (involving
the visiting amphibious transport dock USS Juneau and destroyer USS Fitzgerald), and the
first Marine Corps visit to the PRC.
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December 7-8
Stemming from the MMCA-related Special Policy Dialogue of 2005, the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense held Defense Policy Coordination Talks (DPCT) in
Washington with the director of the PLA’s Foreign Affairs Office to discuss a dispute
over EEZs.
2007

On January 11, 2007, the PLA conducted its first successful direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test by
launching a missile with a kinetic kill vehicle to destroy a PRC satellite at about 530 miles up in space.


January 28-February 9
Deputy Chief of General Staff, General Ge Zhenfeng led a PLA delegation to visit
PACOM in Honolulu, Washington, Fort Monroe, Fort Benning, and West Point. The
U.S. Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) hosted Ge, who also met with the Deputy
Secretary of Defense and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.
However, the PLA declined to attend the Pacific Armies’ Chiefs’ Conference in August
and a reciprocal visit by the CSA.
January 30-31
DPMO/JPAC delegation visited China to discuss POW/MIA cooperation.
February 23-28
Commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, Lt. General Karl Eikenberry,
visited China.
March 22-25
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Peter Pace, was hosted in
China by Chief of General Staff Liang Guanglie and also met with CMC Vice Chairmen
Guo Boxiong and Cao Gangchuan. Pace visited Beijing, Shenyang, Anshan, Dalian, and
Nanjing, including the Academy of Military Sciences, Shenyang MR (where he was the
first U.S. official to sit in a PLAAF Su-27 fighter and a T-99 tank), and the Nanjing MR
command center.
April 1-7
PLA Navy Commander Wu Shengli visited Honolulu and Washington, where he met
with the PACOM Commander Keating, Pacific Fleet Commander Roughhead, Chief of
Naval Operations (CNO) Mul en, Deputy Secretary of Defense England, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Pace, and Navy Secretary Winter. The CNO, Admiral Michael
Mul en, discussed his “1,000-ship navy” maritime security concept with Vice Admiral
Wu. He also toured the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the cruiser USS Lake Erie in
Honolulu, and aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and nuclear attack submarine USS
Montpelier at Norfolk Naval Base. Wu also went to West Point.
April 15-22
General Counsel of the Defense Department William Haynes II visited Beijing and
Shanghai, and met with GPD Director Li Jinai. Haynes sought to understand the rule of
law in China.
April 21-28
U.S. mid-level officers’ visit to China, led by RAdm Michael Tracy (PACOM J-5). The
delegation visited Beijing, Qingdao, Nanjing, and Shenyang, including the East Sea Fleet
Headquarters, a Su-27 fighter base, and 179th Brigade.
May 12-16
PACOM Commander Admiral Timothy Keating visited Beijing, meeting with CMC Vice
Chairman Guo Boxiong and questioning the ASAT weapon test in January. Keating also
met with PLA Navy Commander Wu Shengli and heard interest in acquiring an aircraft
carrier. Keating visited the Nanjing Military Region (including the Nanjing Naval
Command, Nanjing Polytechnic Institute, and 179th Brigade). At a press conference in
Beijing on May 12, Keating suggested U.S. “help” if China builds aircraft carriers.
June 15-25
In the third such visit and nominal y under its Command College, the PLAAF sent a 20-
member delegation (U.S. limit reduced from 58 members in September 2006). They
visited New York, McGuire AFB (saw KC-135 Stratotanker) in New Jersey, the
Pentagon in D.C., Maxwell AFB and Air War College in Alabama, Lackland AFB and
Randolph AFB (Personnel Center) in Texas, and Los Angeles.
July 23-29
Pacific Air Forces Commander, General Paul Hester, visited Beijing and Nanjing. He
met with PLAAF Commander Qiao Qingchen and Deputy Chief of General Staff Ge
Zhenfeng. Hester visited Jining Air Base (as the first U.S. visitor) and Jianqiao Air Base.
He was denied access to the J-10 fighter.
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August 17-23
After nomination to be Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CNO, Adm. Michael
Mul en, visited Lushun, Qingdao, Ningbo, and Dalian Naval Academy. He met with
PLAN Commander Wu Shengli and two CMC Vice Chairmen, Generals Guo Boxiong
and Cao Gangchuan. After postponing his reciprocal visit (for hosting PLAN
Commander Wu Shengli in April) due to inadequate substance and access given by the
PLA, Mul en got unprecedented observation of an exercise, boarding a Song-class sub
and Luzhou-class destroyer.
November 4-6
Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited China (then South Korea and Japan). Defense
Minister Cao Gangchuan final y agreed to the U.S. proposal to set up a defense
telephone link (hotline). Gates also sought a dialogue on nuclear policy and broader
exchanges beyond the senior level. Gates also met with CMC Vice Chairmen Guo
Boxiong and Xu Caihou, and Chairman Hu Jintao.


In November 2007, the PRC disapproved a number of port cal s at Hong Kong by U.S. Navy ships, including two
minesweepers in distress (USS Patriot and USS Guardian) seeking to refuel in face of an approaching storm, and the
aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and accompanying vessels planning on a holiday and family reunions for Thanksgiving. In
response, on November 28, President Bush raised the problem with the PRC’s visiting Foreign Minister, and Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney lodged a demarche to the PLA. When the Kitty Hawk left Hong Kong, it
transited the Taiwan Strait, raising PRC objections. In Beijing in January 2008, Adm. Keating asserted that the strait is
international water and PRC permission is not needed.


December 3
9th DCT was held in Washington. PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff Ma Xiaotian and
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman led discussions that covered PLA
objections to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and U.S. law restricting military contacts,
military exchanges in 2008, nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran (including the
just-issued U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program), lower-ranking
exchanges, hotline, PLA’s suspension of some visits and port cal s in Hong Kong, and
U.S. interest in a strategic nuclear dialogue. The PLA delegation included PLAN Deputy
Chief of Staff Zhang Leiyu and 2nd Artillery Deputy Chief of Staff Yang Zhiguo. They also
met: Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff James Cartwright, Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey, and Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte.
2008

January 13-18
In his 2nd visit as PACOM Commander, Adm. Timothy Keating, visited Beijing, Shanghai,
and Guangzhou, before Hong Kong. He visited AMS and Guangzhou MR, and met with
PLA Chief of General Staff, General Chen Bingde; CMC Vice Chairman, General Guo
Boxiong, who demanded an end to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Keating discussed
planned exchanges with a new invitation to the PLA to participate in the Cobra Gold
multilateral exercise in May, the PRC’s strategic intentions, denied port calls in Hong
Kong, etc. (But the PLA only observed Cobra Gold in Thailand in May 2008.)
February 23-27
PACOM’s Director for Strategic Planning and Policy (J-5), USMC Major General
Thomas Conant, and PLA Navy Deputy Chief of Staff Zhang Leiyu led an annual plenary
meeting under the MMCA in Qingdao, the first since 2006. The U.S. delegation visited
the frigate Luoyang. The U.S. side opposed PLA proposals to discuss policy differences
and plan details of naval exercises at the MMCA meetings.
February 25-29
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Charles Ray signed a
Memorandum of Understanding in Shanghai on February 29, 2008, gaining indirect
access to PLA archives on the Korean War in an effort to resolve decades-old
POW/MIA cases.
February 26-29
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney met with PLA Assistant Chief of
General Staff, Major General Chen Xiaogong, in Beijing. Sedney also led another
meeting of the DPCT in Shanghai. Sedney and Major General Qian Lihua, Director of
the PLA’s Foreign Affairs Office, signed an agreement to set up a hotline.


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Days before Taiwan’s presidential election and referendums on March 22, 2008, in a sign of U.S. anxiety about PRC
threats to peace and stability, the Defense Department had two aircraft carriers (including the Kitty Hawk returning
from its base in Japan for decommissioning) positioned east of Taiwan to respond to any provocative situation.


March 7-15
PACOM’s Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and Policy, Brigadier General Sam
Angelella, led a 19-member group of mid-level officers to Beijing, Zhengzhou, and
Qingdao.
March 29-April 6
The U.S. Marine Corps Commandant, General James Conway, visited Beijing, as hosted
by PLA Navy Commander Wu Shengli. Conway met with Defense Minister Liang
Guanglie and spoke at NDU. The PLAN allowed Conway to board an amphibious ship,
a destroyer, and an expeditionary fighting vehicle. In meeting Guangzhou MR
Commander, Lt. Gen. Zhang Qinsheng, Conway apparently discussed deploying forces
together in disaster relief operations.
April 21-22
The first discussion on nuclear weapon strategy and policy was held in Washington,
DC, at the “experts” level.
May 18
After the earthquake in China on May 12, PACOM sent two C-17 transport aircraft to
Chengdu to deliver disaster relief supplies. PACOM Commander Keating used the
Pentagon’s hotline to discuss that aid with PLA Deputy Chief of General Staff Ma
Xiaotian.
June 16-21
Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt James Roy from PACOM led the first U.S. NCO
delegation to China. The group of senior NCOs visited the PLA’s 179th Infantry
Battalion in Nanjing and the Second Artillery (Missile Force) Academy’s NCO training
school in Wuhan.
July 6-17
PLA Lieutenant General Zhang Qinsheng, Guangzhou Military Region Commander, led
a delegation to Hawaii. He met with Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of the Pacific
Fleet, at his headquarters and with Rear Adm. Joe Walsh, Submarine Force
Commander, during a tour of the attack submarine USS Santa Fe. The PLA delegation
also was able to observe the RIMPAC exercise. PACOM Commander, Admiral Timothy
Keating, agreed with Zhang about planning for two humanitarian aid exercises, the first
combined land-based ones, to “push the envelope.” The PLA delegation also visited
Alaska, Washington, D.C., and New York. In Washington, Zhang met with U.S. officials
of the Marine Corps, Departments of Defense and State, and NSC, including Deputy
Secretary of Defense Gordon England.
September 30-October 2
The PLA sent its first “NCO” delegation to PACOM supposedly to reciprocate the U.S.
NCO visit in June. However, the PLA delegation was led by Major General Zhong
Zhiming, and only 3 out of 13 members in the group were enlisted.
December 17-19
After the PLA suspended some military exchanges in response to notifications to
Congress of arms sales to Taiwan on October 3, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
David Sedney visited Beijing to try without success to resume exchanges. He met with
PLA Assistant Chief of General Staff Chen Xiaogong.
2009

January
The PLA Navy and U.S. Navy coordinated anti-piracy operations off Somalia.
February 27-28
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney again visited Beijing to resume
military exchanges after suspension in October 2008. He held a round of the DPCT,
met with Deputy Chief of General Staff Ma Xiaotian, and then cal ed his meetings “the
best set of talks” he has experienced. However, results were limited, and the PLA
raised U.S. “obstacles,” including arms sales to and military ties with Taiwan, legal
restrictions on military contacts, and reports on PRC Military Power.


On March 4-8, 2009, Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft, a PLAN frigate, PRC patrol and intelligence collection ships,
and trawlers coordinated in increasingly aggressive and dangerous harassment of unarmed U.S. ocean surveillance
ships, the USNS Victorious and USNS Impeccable, during routine operations in international waters in the Yellow Sea
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U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress

and South China Sea (75 miles south of Hainan island). The PRC ships risked collision. On March 10, China sent its
largest “fishery patrol” ship (converted from a PLAN vessel) to “safeguard sovereignty” in the South China Sea. U.S.
press reported the next day that the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon, already deployed in the area, provided armed
escort to continuing U.S. surveillance operations. On March 10, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair
(also retired admiral and former PACOM commander) testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that this
crisis is the most serious since the EP-3 crisis of 2001, China has been even more aggressive in the South China Sea in
the past two years, and there is still a question as to whether China will use its increasingly powerful military “for
good or for pushing people around.” (For years, China has tried to stake sovereign claims to Exclusive Economic
Zones (EEZs) (up to 200 miles from the coast) beyond territorial waters (up to 12 miles from the coast), while the
United States and other countries assert access and freedom of navigation in and flight over the high seas.) On March
12, President Obama stressed military dialogue to avoid future incidents with visiting PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.


April 18-22
Admiral Gary Roughead, CNO, visited Beijing and Qingdao in part for the international
fleet review for the 60th anniversary of the PLA Navy.
June 23-24
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy visited Beijing for the 10th
DCT. She met with Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian. They agreed to hold a special MMCA
meeting to discuss disputes over freedom of navigation in the PRC EEZ. But while the
U.S. Navy was tracking a North Korean ship with suspicious cargo for Burma, Flournoy
said they did not discuss the enforcement of U.N. sanctions against North Korea and
the meeting was not “appropriate” to discuss “operational” questions.
July 27-28
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and PACOM Commander,
Admiral Timothy Keating, represented the DOD at the Strategic and Economic

Dialogue in Washington. Pressed to participate, the PLA sent Rear Admiral Guan
Youfei. They agreed that a CMC Vice Chairman will visit the United States.


Author Contact Information

Shirley A. Kan

Specialist in Asian Security Affairs
skan@crs.loc.gov, 7-7606

Acknowledgments
This CRS study was originally written at the request of the House Armed Services Committee in the 108th
Congress and is updated and made available for general congressional use.



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