China’s Military an Obstacle to Improving Relations, Gates Says

China’s Military an Obstacle to Improving Relations, Gates Says
By THOM SHANKER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/world/asia/05gates.html?hpw


WASHINGTON — China’s military is blocking efforts to improve ties with the United States that are growing more positive in other areas, particularly on political and economic issues, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday.

“Nearly all of the aspects of the relationship between the United States and China are moving forward in a positive direction, with the sole exception of the military-to-military relationship,” Mr. Gates told reporters traveling with him to an Asian security conference in Singapore. He suggested that the military was out of step with the political leadership in Beijing.

Mr. Gates had also considered stopping in Beijing on this trip, making good on an invitation issued by Chinese military leaders who visited Washington last winter. But the invitation was canceled, or at least put on hold.

“We’d been hearing hints, in sort of sideline comments, that the visit was not likely to take place for some weeks,” Mr. Gates noted. “I’m disappointed only in the sense that I think that a more open dialogue with the Chinese about our military modernization programs, about our strategic view of the world, is a constructive and helpful thing in a relationship between two great nations.”

The Chinese military is especially outraged by a decision made early this year by the Obama administration to move forward with billions of dollars in arms sales to Taiwan, which China views as renegade province.

Mr. Gates is set to deliver the keynote address to the security conference on Saturday, and in previewing his comments, he noted, “As I’ll say in my speech, the Taiwan arms sales issue is far from new in this relationship.”

American arms sales to Taiwan approved by both the Bush and Obama administrations “were carefully calibrated to keep them on the defensive side,” Mr. Gates said.

He noted that those weapons deals had “not inhibited the development of the political and economic relationship.”

“If they want to single out the military side of the relationship as the place where they want to play this out, then so be it,” he said. “But it has not impeded the development of the relationship in other areas.”

Aubrey Belford contributed reporting from Singapore.