US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld departs Monday on his first
visit to China since 2000, marking a new opening or hopefully a new
way of thinking in the very conservative Pentagon towards a rapidly
developing China.
Rumsfeld is scheduled to meet with President Hu
Jintao, who also is chairman of the Central Military
Commission, which runs the military, and other senior officials,
including Rumsfeld's counterpart, General Cao
Gangchuan, the Associated Press reported.
As a good will gesture to the Americans, China agreed to allow
Rumsfeld to visit the 2nd Artillery Corps headquarters at Qinghe,
which runs its strategic missile forces. Rumsfeld would be the
first US official ever to see the complex, said Pentagon officials
who briefed reporters on the historical trip.
Secretary Rumsfeld is hoping Beijing detail more about the scope
of its military budget, and will confer closely with Chinese
leaders to fathom Chinese intentions, the Associated Press
reported. Up to now, the Pentagon sees China as a potential threat
to US interests in Asia and a possible global rival in the
future.
Rumsfeld leaves Washington with few expectations of major
breakthroughs in the topsy-turvy relationship with China, his aides
was quoted as saying. But many see his visit as bringing the United
States and China full-circle from the most recent low point in
relations: the April 2001 collision of a Chinese jet and a US Navy
spy plane in China's southern coastal sea.
Rumsfeld's visit, only the third by a US defense secretary in
the past decade and the first since 2000, is intended in part as a
precursor to a trip that President Bush plans for November.
Rumsfeld's visit is "long overdue, very welcome, and hopefully
will help to restore some trust and momentum to the US-China
military and strategic relationship," said David Shambaugh,
director of the China Policy Program at George Washington
University. "Yet the depth of distrust and misperceptions in both
military establishments toward the other is palpable and not easily
overcome."
Kurt Campbell, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for
Asia and Pacific affairs during the Clinton administration, said in
an interview with the Associated Press that Rumsfeld's visit is a
welcome change of approach for the Bush administration.
(China Daily October 16, 2005)