BEIJING – US Defense Secretary James Mattis arrived in Beijing on hisfirst ever visit to China on Tuesday, aiming to find room for militarycooperation as security tensions between the two superpowers edge higher.
With Washington and Beijing locked in an escalating trade war, and thePentagon alarmed over China s placement of weapons on disputed islands inthe South China Sea, Mattis said he would seek areas where the the twosides share interests, including persuading North Korea to give up itsnuclear arsenal.
Mattis is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart, Defence Minister WeiFenghe, for the first time as well as other top officials, to “takemeasure” of their views.
The last time a US defense secretary visited China was four years ago, andcommunications between the two militaries need strengthening, Mattis said.
“I think the way to address issues between our two nations is to firstestablish a transparent strategic dialogue: how do the Chinese see therelationship with us developing, how we see it developing,” he said.
In a statement ahead of the visit, Chinese defence ministry spokesman RenGuoqiang said they should “work together to make the bilateral militaryrelationship an important stabilising factor in the relationship betweenthe two countries.”
But China s state-run Global Times newspaper, warned in an editorial onTuesday that “Mattis should listen rather than criticise”.
“If the US fails to understand China s sense of insecurity, ormisinterprets the necessity of the actions that China has taken toalleviate this sense of insecurity, tensions will be inevitable in Sino-USties,” the nationalist tabloid wrote.——————————
*Focus on military relations*——————————
The Pentagon chief, who will also visit South Korea and Japan on a four-dayvisit to the region, arrives as the trade threats between Washington andBeijing intensified, with tariffs looming next week.
But he made clear that his talks would be limited to military-to-militaryrelations and the North Korea nuclear negotiations.
US defence strategists are broadly concerned by China s rapid advances inmilitary technology and its increasing ability to project its offensivemilitary might far into the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, where theUnited States has been uncontested since World War II.
Mattis said in a speech to Naval War College graduates last week that Chinaharbours “long-term designs to rewrite the existing global order”.
He also said recently that Chinese President Xi Jinping reneged on hispromise three years ago to then president Barack Obama to never militarisethe South China Sea.
At a strategic forum in Singapore three weeks ago, Mattis said Beijing sdeployment of high end weapons systems in the South China Sea was for thepurposes of “intimidation and coercion”.
The Chinese retorted that Mattis comments were “irresponsible”.
US officials are also concerned over Beijing s stepped-up campaign topressure Taiwan, a longtime ally of the United States despite the lack ofofficial diplomatic relations.
On the eve of Mattis trip, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen told AFP in aninterview that the global community needs to work together to “constrainChina and also minimise the expansion of their hegemonic influence”.
Mattis was confident the two sides could find some areas to work togetheron, including North Korea.
A senior Pentagon official said they see China as continuing to enforcesanctions on Pyongyang as negotiations on a denuclearization plan continue.- APP/AFP