US President George W. Bush has told his defense chiefs to intensify efforts to forge a new military relationship with China, Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post reported, quoting sources close to the Bush administration.
The newspaper said that, in a meeting with top security officials last week, Bush instructed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to ensure the Pentagon swiftly found ways of moving ahead after a recent visit to Beijing by senior defense official Peter Rodman.
"The president made clear that he had been well briefed and had given the issue considerable thought. ... He left Pentagon hawks in no doubt that it was time to start moving forward, if possible," it quoted a senior administration source as saying.
"He is very keen for a relationship to start to develop and believes it is important for America's security interest and the wider Sino-US relationship," the source was quoted as saying.
Earlier attempts to broach a military relationship were frozen after a US navy reconnaissance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet in April last year and was forced to land on Hainan island.
The political relationship has since been partly mended but military ties have not and recent Pentagon studies still see China as a direct military threat to its view of the Asia-Pacific balance of power.
The Post said the Bush administration sources now expected a resumption by the end of the year of annual meetings between leaders of the two nations' armed forces to map out a new way to build "openness and trust."
A report from the Pentagon on Friday concluded that China was now boosting its armed forces with the particular objective of defeating Taiwan.
The report was no great surprise to military analysts, who said in Beijing on Saturday that China's clear modernization of its military had the broader aim of developing itself as a regional power, as well as bringing Taiwan to heel as quickly through possible air and missile campaigns or a naval blockade.
China's Foreign Ministry reacted sharply to the Pentagon report yesterday, saying the country's military policy was defensive.
"China is a peace-loving country. Its national defense policy is defensive in nature," the Xinhua news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan (
"China never joins in any military race and its national defense expenditure is the lowest among big powers," it said.
While downplaying US concerns of China's growing military might, Kong refused to address recent multi-billion dollar weapons acquisitions from Russia and the deployment of some 350 short-range ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwan.
China's policy on Taiwan was "clear and consistent," he said.
It would continue to seek "peaceful unification under the `one country, two systems'" formula, as well as an eight-point reunification proposal put forward by President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) in 1995.
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