China's military yesterday rolled out the red carpet for visiting US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, the highest level military officer to visit since ties dived three years ago.
Myers was given an honor guard welcome as he met his counterpart, General Liang Guanglie, chief of general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
A 40-piece military band performed the two national anthems in front of the Defense Ministry.
"General Myers, respected American guest, today I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to meet you," Liang said.
"First of all, on behalf of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, and also in my own name, I'd like to extend a warm welcome."
Military ties plummeted when a US surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter in mid-air nearly three years ago in the South China Sea and no high-ranking US military official had been to China since.
The Chinese pilot was killed and the crippled EP-3 was forced to make an emergency landing at an airbase on China's Hainan island, where the plane's crew was held for 11 days.
The ice was broken during a visit to Washington last October by Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan (曹剛川) during which he met Myers and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
During his visit, Myers is expected to cement routine military-to-military exchanges with China which were renewed with Cao's trip.
Besides Liang and Cao, Myers would also meet with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (
Defense Ministry officials said military-to-military relations would be the main topic of the visit, but they did not discount the possibility of the North Korean nuclear crisis and the question of Taiwan also featuring.
A paper on China issued by the Pentagon in August identified an "increasing willingness" by China to use force in reunifying Taiwan, while noting a buildup of missile forces against Taiwan and China's increasing military capability.
Meanwhile, China's participation in the global war on terror and its efforts to broker six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions have won praise from Washington.
"We believe that through this visit we can deepen understanding between the two militaries, expand bilateral consensus and develop bilateral friendship, while also promoting the healthy and stable development of Sino-US military relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said Tuesday.
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