China on Friday urged the United States to stop selling arms to Taiwan and remove other obstacles that stand in the way of the renewed military ties seriously damaged by the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.
"China-U.S. military relations remain difficult. We expect the United States to take concrete measures for the resumption and development of our military ties," Qian Lihua, director of Foreign Affairs Office of China's National Defense Ministry, said.
Qian's comments came at the start of the two-day Defense Policy Coordination Talks in Beijing, co-chaired by Qian and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney.
The fifth round of talks since their inception in 2005 will be the first between the two defense ministries since the Pentagon announced a $6.5 billion Taiwan arms deal last October. The deal included 30 Apache attack helicopters and 330 Patriot missiles.
It was the biggest arms sale to Taiwan since China and the United States signed the "August 17 Communiqué" in 1982, in which the United States agreed to gradually reduce its arms sales to Taiwan.
Qian said the Taiwan question had a bearing on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, affected Chinese people's sentiments and was related to China's core interests and concerns.
"The U.S. arms sale to Taiwan hurt China's core security interests and affected peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," Qian said.
"China urges the United States to prudently deal with the Taiwan question, stop upgrading substantive military relations with Taiwan, stop selling arms and make concrete actions in support of the peaceful development of cross-Straits ties," Qian said.
The dialogue itself did not necessarily signify the resumption of the suspended military exchanges between both countries, said Qian.
"Frankly speaking, it will take a long time to restore our military exchanges as not a single obstacle in military ties has been removed so far," Qian said.
"Those U.S. obstacles included the arms sales to Taiwan, some bills limiting the bilateral military exchanges, as represented by the 2000 Fiscal Year Defense Authorization Act," said Yang Yi, a strategic expert with National Defense University of China.
The dialogue was also the first military-to-military consultation between both countries since the Obama administration took office last month.
"I was here two months ago when I was an official of the Bush administration. Now I am happy to come as an official of the Obama administration," Sedney said.
"We look forward to hearing the proposals of the new U.S. administration on promoting bilateral military relations," Qian said, stressing the importance China attached to bilateral military exchanges.
Saying his tour "followed the footsteps" of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, Sedney stressed the importance of bilateral military relations.
"Thus we must increase communications to reduce the chance of strategic misunderstanding," Sedney said. "We do have a lot of serious and important things to talk about ... I hope this year's session will be productive and fruitful."
Qian proposed the two militaries follow the principles of respect, mutual trust, reciprocity and mutual benefit and explore ways and means of building trust.
Friday's talks also covered China-U.S. maritime security consultation, international and regional security, escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and Somalia.
Among the Chinese participants were mid-level officers from the army, navy and air force as well as some military scholars.
The U.S. delegation to the talks included officials from the Defense Department, the State Department, the Pacific Command and the Joint Chief of Staff.
Sedney will also meet with Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, before leaving for Seoul Saturday afternoon.
(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2009)