When the US imposed sanctions on the Chinese military this fall, China retaliated by canceling US Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ plans to meet his counterpart in Beijing, but just days later, a Chinese general visited the Pentagon with a reassuring message: Beijing valued the importance of military ties between the two countries.
In the previously unreported visit, Huang Xueping (黃學平) arrived on Oct. 10 to see Mattis’ aides, but the secretary briefly met him in the hallway with a message for Chinese Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe (魏鳳和).
The two were going to be at a security conference in Singapore at the end of last month and Mattis told Huang that he looked forward to meeting Wei there, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver said.
Illustration: Mountain People
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have plumbed new depths under US President Donald Trump amid a bitter trade dispute and disagreements over Taiwan, the South China Sea and other geopolitical flashpoints.
Worried that weak ties between major militaries can lead to misunderstandings that snowball into conflict amid tense relations, US officials said Mattis is attempting to forge a relationship with Chinese military leaders.
He appears to be getting traction. On Friday last week, he held a third meeting with Wei in less than five months, an unusual intensity of top-level contact. Mattis’ trip to China in June was the first by a US defense secretary since 2014.
Schriver said that US-China talks in Washington on Friday included “risk reduction” efforts that the two countries can undertake, which aim to drive down the chance of an inadvertent clash.
“We want to make sure that as we compete that it’s a benign type of competition [and] doesn’t result in something catastrophic,” he said.
RISK OF MISHAP
New military data and recent incidents involving US military activity in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait show that Mattis is walking a fine line. Even as he tries to forge ties to contain crises, the Pentagon is ramping up activity that irritates the Chinese government.
For example, in the 12 months ending on Sept. 30, there were six so-called “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea, compared with four in the same period a year earlier, a US official said.
Such operations involve sending warships into international waters if they are claimed by other countries. China claims most of the South China Sea and has been militarizing islands there.
The six operations are equivalent to what the Navy did during the final two years of former US president Barack Obama’s administration.
The Pentagon is also running warships through the Taiwan Strait with greater frequency and this year mulled sending an aircraft carrier through the narrow waterway, US officials said.
Susan Thornton, who until July was the US acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said that the increased military activity is ratcheting up the risks.
“We are doing things that are frankly more aggressive, and the Chinese are pushing back harder than they ever have before,” Thornton said. “The risk of a mishap is growing.”
Schriver acknowledged that it was difficult to predict how resilient US-Chinese military ties would be in an actual crisis.
“I guess we won’t know until there’s a crisis, and it’s tested,” he said.
‘WISE MAN’
China is becoming more assertive militarily. On Sept. 30, a Chinese ship came within 41m of a US Navy destroyer in international waters in the South China Sea. The Chinese ship put bumpers on its side, suggesting it expected a possible collision when it ran the maneuver.
“You don’t do that when you’re out in the middle of the ocean, unless you’re intending to run into something,” Mattis told reporters last month.
At the same time, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense has said it hopes that the military relationship can become a “stabilizer” for overall ties, and officials have suggested that Beijing has more confidence in Mattis than in some other top Trump administration officials.
One Chinese official said that Beijing regards Mattis as a “wise man,” experienced enough in war to know that it is best to avoid armed conflict.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
‘COMPETITOR’
Thornton said Mattis’ China contacts, while helpful, would not be enough to bridge gaps elsewhere in the Trump administration in the event of a crisis.
Further, if Mattis were to leave, his successor would need time to get up to speed, a dangerous prospect at a time of heightened tensions, she added.
Mattis’ departure from the Cabinet has been the subject of media speculation, although both Mattis and Trump have dismissed the idea.
When Mattis flew to Beijing in June, he got an earful from China’s military about the Pentagon’s decision to describe China in a key Pentagon policy document as a “strategic competitor” militarizing the South China Sea.
In his closed-door talks, Mattis defended the description, saying that the Pentagon chose those words carefully, knowing that they would be scrutinized in Beijing, US officials who heard the exchange said.
“Competitor is not adversary. It’s not enemy,” Schriver said, explaining Mattis’ position.
The two sides have met on other occasions as well for confidence-building measures.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joe Dunford said this week that the US and China held a “table-top” exercise about four months ago, where the two sides discussed various potential crisis scenarios.
The goal of the exercise was to reduce the risk of miscalculation during a crisis, Dunford said.
Speaking at a Washington event last week, Mattis said: “I think that 15 years from now we will be remembered most for: How did we set the conditions for a positive relationship with China?”
Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom and Ben Blanchard
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