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Good Meetings Continue Between U.S. & China

The US Pacific Command has opened a new channel of communications with the People's Liberation Army of China in a continuing campaign with two objectives:

• To deter China from confronting the US with armed force;

• To assure the Chinese that the US is not seeking to contain their nation.

The latest US envoys in this endeavor are the senior non-commissioned officers who are responsible for the day-to-day care, feeding, training, and work of the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. It may be trite but it is true that they are the backbone of America's forces.

In the first venture of NCOs into this military diplomacy, the senior enlisted leader of the Pacific Command, Chief Master Sergeant James Roy of the Air Force, led a delegation of 12 senior NCOs to China recently and is preparing to receive a Chinese delegation in a reciprocal visit to US forces in Hawaii this fall.

Chief Roy emphasized the reasons for the trip to China. "We did not go to help them to build capacity," he said in an interview, meaning to strengthen their armed forces. US military exchanges with China have been controversial with critics, including neo-conservatives, contending the US should not help China to improve its forces.

Instead, Chief Roy said, "We went to understand them better and to have them understand us." In less diplomatic terms, that meant learning more about the capabilities of the PLA and demonstrating the ability of American NCOs who are the foremen-and women-of their services to get things done.

Sino-US military relations have travelled a bumpy road for many years. The current tone appears to have been set by Admiral Dennis Blair, who led the Pacific Command in 1999. In testimony before a Congressional committee, he asserted that US military leaders sought to get two points across to the Chinese:

• "We're not sitting here planning to contain China. We're not sitting here dying to pick a fight with China. We basically are an armed force in a democratic society who will fight if must but prefer not to. And we'll support American interests if we have to, but don't mess with us."

• "We are very aware in our program of not giving away more than we get from these exchanges. We're not doing it to be nice guys. We're doing it to get our job done, of teaching the Chinese what sort of capability we have out there."

In recent years, several US secretaries of defense and top military officers have visited China and received their counterparts in Washington. Over time, a large part of the military exchange has fallen to the Pacific Command. The former commander, Admiral William Fallon, went to China three times and the current commander, Admiral Timothy Keating, has been there twice (instead of once) and will most likely go again. Senior Chinese officers have visited the command's headquarters in Honolulu and bases on the US mainland.

In addition, exchanges of middle grade officers, those who will lead their respective services in the next ten or fifteen years, have begun. Now the senior NCOs have been tasked to gauge the quality of Chinese NCOs and to impress the Chinese with US training and experience.

The PLA, having been an unschooled army that relied on human wave tactics in the Korean War of 1950-53 and later, has recently begun to develop qualified NCOs. Chinese leaders, a Pentagon report said in March, are concerned that "low education levels in the PLA negatively affect its operating capability and professionalism."

During the week the American NCO delegation was in China on their initial visit, they engaged in discussions mostly with Chinese officers, not with NCOs, and toured bases in the Nanjing military district on the central coast of China. The Chinese, Chief Roy said, asked "very few stray questions. They had a good idea of why we were there."

Even so, the American concept of a non-commissioned officer corps puzzled the Chinese. "The Chinese do not yet understand the role of the senior NCO in the US military service," Chief Roy said. Pointing to the chevrons on his sleeve, he said: "They did not understand that a chief master sergeant as the senior enlisted leader of the Pacific Command is not a commander."

Altogether, the senior enlisted leader said: "I thought it was a very good dialogue. They invited us back and we expect them to come here on a reciprocal visit. It needs to go both ways."

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Related Topics: china | national security |

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