American officials are calling General Richard Myers' visit to China a sign that military relations between the two countries are recovering. But joint maneuvers by their combat forces are not expected anytime soon because Washington and Beijing remain far too wary of each other.
Military ties, severely curtailed three years ago after a Chinese fighter collided with an American spy plane off the Chinese coast, are regarded as a vital part of US diplomacy with the world's most populous nation.
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met on Wednesday and Thursday with Chinese officials in Beijing. He was the highest-ranking US military official to visit China since 1997.
"We're making some good progress in our military-to-military relationship," Myers said at the end of his visit.
Myers and his entourage became the first foreign delegation allowed access to the mission control facility for China's manned space program. Myers congratulated China for last October's achievement of becoming only the third nation to put a man into orbit.
Still, the visit was one with few immediately tangible results: no new agreements, no sweeping new statements of US or Chinese policy.
Instead of joint exercises by combat forces, a usual training procedure of allied military forces, Myers suggested joint search-and-rescue exercises, educational exchanges and additional visits by warships to ports in each country.
A possible new crisis could be brewing over Taiwan, always a sticking point between the two nations.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), has declared an immediate security threat from China and has announced that the nation will hold a referendum March 20 -- the day Chen seeks re-election -- on whether China should stop pointing hundreds of missiles at Taiwan. Washington criticized the referendum as unnecessary and Chen softened its wording last week.
Still, Myers told Chinese reporters that the missiles constitute one reason the US continues to sell high-tech military equipment to Taiwan.
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