China Military May Set Up U.S. Hotline

by Pat_Nolan | March 23, 2007 at 03:34 am

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The burgeoning Asian superpower is taking considering taking a step that the US could not have -- Extending communications to what is most likely going to be our next cold war-type foe. Communication is good.

But we seriously need to address the fundamental problems that prevent close relations with China. Setting aside the humanitarian reasons, China will be the sole economic superpower by 2020. China has more manufacturing capacity by percentage than the US did at the start of WWII. And the US had less than Japan did at that time.

The potential of a shooting war between the US and China is very high during the next 40 years. Hopefully communications like this will help avoid that.

BEIJING (AP) - China's military is
proposing officer exchanges and other confidence- building measures
with the U.S. Army and may be inching closer to setting up a "hotline"
for emergency communication with Washington, the top U.S. general said
Friday. However, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he received no new information in meetings with Chinese military
chiefs about Beijing's test of an anti-satellite weapon in January that
raised concern in Washington. He said he continued to press China's
generals for more transparency about the aims of their military buildup.

....

Mistrust remains, however, particularly over Washington's close military ties with Japan and commitment to help ensure the defense of Taiwan, the self-governing island that China considers its own territory and which it has threatened to use force to recover.

China has complained about U.S. plans to sell a batch of more than 400 missiles to Taiwan, but Pace said he had no details and didn't indicate whether the deal was mentioned in discussions.

Asked about the possibility of a conflict over Taiwan, he said: "I believe there are good faith efforts among all the leadership to prevent that."

The general didn't say how the Chinese officers responded to his calls for more transparency. China raised its military budget by 17.8 percent this year to about $45 billion—the biggest jump since 1995. The Pentagon says actual Chinese defense spending could be twice as high.

The spending boost and January's satellite test, in which China became only the third country to destroy an object in space by pulverizing one of its own unused satellites with a missile warhead, heightened the sense of unease in Washington over China's 2.3 million-member armed forces.