U.S. invitation for China to watch military exercise a positive sign: expert

A Chinese military expert said Thursday that it is a positive sign that the United States has invited China to watch a military exercise at Guam.

"This is a positive signal worthy of attention for the military relations between China and the United States," said Yang Yi, Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies, National Defense University of China.

"China and the United States need to conduct military exchanges on a basis of equality and mutual benefit as they both have great influence and shoulder great responsibility for world peace and prosperity," said Yang, acknowledging that military relations have been the most unsteady aspect in China-U.S. ties.

The bilateral relations were broken off in 2001 when a Chinese fighter aircraft was rammed and damaged by a U.S. surveillance plane over the South China Sea.

It was not until recent years and through the efforts of the heads of the two countries that the military exchanges were gradually resumed and expanded, Yang said in an article in the People's Daily, China's official leading newspaper.

The invitation for China to view a military exercise at Guam was officially made by the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command William Fallon during his recent trip in China.

China is actively considering the invitation, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

"China welcomes the efforts by the U.S. side to promote mutual understanding of the two countries and relations between the two armed forces," Liu said at a regular press conference Tuesday.

However, some nations including the United States have played up "China's military threat", saying that China's military development has lacked transparency.

Yang said "military transparency" should not only include transparency of military expenditure, scale of armed forces and weapons and equipment, but more important the transparency of strategic intentions.

The United States has deliberately made its strategic intentions vague and ambiguous in many major issues, such as its interference in the Taiwan issue and the scope of the U.S.-Japan military alliance, he noted.

On the other hand, Yang said, China's strategic intentions are moral and just.

China was the first nation in the world to announce that it will never use nuclear weapons before any other country in a war situation and never use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country with no nuclear weapons.

China has also undertaken to destroy all its nuclear weapons in the end, said Yang.

Yang held that China and the United States should make candid exchanges of views during their military exchanges, not avoiding differences and reducing doubts of each other's strategic intentions, so as to safeguard the healthy and steady growth of bilateral relations.

Source: Xinhua