U.S. looks to China for support on Afghanistan: Pentagon

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States is looking to stronger Chinese cooperation on Afghanistan, piracy, and other international troubles, a Pentagon official said on Saturday after talks that he said also addressed strains over Taiwan.

The U.S. official, David Sedney, said China's opposition to Washington's arms sales to the disputed island of Taiwan came up in the two days of discussions in Beijing, but did not overwhelm an agenda that also covered Central Asia, China's contribution to fighting piracy off the Somali coast, and nuclear weapons.

"The focus was not at all on obstacles. The focus was on how we can move forward," Sedney, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a news briefing after the talks.

"We both understand that it really is a new strategic environment that we're in here, with China playing the role that it does," he said.

The talks marked the first defense policy dialogue between the United States and China under the new Obama administration.

Sedney cast them as a promising start but avoided specifics.

Asked if the two sides discussed North Korea and its possible launch of a missile, he said that the two sides had talked about security in northeast Asia.

President Barack Obama has said he will increase forces in Afghanistan by 17,000 in a bid to quell worsening insurgent violence. Sedney said Washington would welcome Chinese help there and in neighboring Pakistan.

"This is an area where we're looking to see more contributions from the international community -- and of course ... this means China -- to assist in the many, many needs that are in Afghanistan," Sedney said.

He raised health, education and trade as examples of areas where China could help in Afghanistan, but did not specify security forces as among them. But he said Chinese military officials were interested in U.S. plans there.

"As they pointed out, Afghanistan and Pakistan are both neighbors of China," Sedney said.

These latest U.S.-China Defense Policy Coordination Talks came after Beijing curtailed many bilateral military contacts in November to show its anger over the Bush administration's decision to sell $6.5 billion of arms to Taiwan.

Beijing says Taiwan is an illegitimate breakaway province that must accept reunification, by force if necessary, and it has been angered by the military sales. Washington says the sales are justified by U.S. law as designed to help Taiwan defend itself.

Sedney said the two delegations' discussion of Taiwan was frank but did not mark a shift in long-standing positions.

He praised China's sending of warships to help NATO and other forces fight pirates who use Somalia as a base to menace the Gulf of Aden.

Since Obama entered the White House, both sides have been seeking to overcome friction and resume military contacts, which Sedney said had been restricted but never fully broken off.

China has not yet given its official account of the talks.

But at their start on Friday, Defense Ministry official Qian Lihua said "a lot of obstacles still existed ... relations between the two countries' militaries were still in a difficult period," the Liberation Army Daily said.

Washington has its own complaints about China's military development. Pentagon officials have often said Beijing's defense spending lacks transparency, fuelling disquiet in the region.

China's defense budget for 2009 is likely to be announced at the annual session of the Communist Party-run parliament, which starts next week. In 2008, the government said it would spend 418 billion yuan ($61 billion) on defense, up 17.6 percent on 2007.

U.S. military spending accounts for about half the global total. Sedney said defense officials from the two sides will meet next week to work on dates for other military talks.

(Additional reporting Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source Reuters news

 

This story is amazing and and I almost fell of my chair laughing after reading the opening paragraph:

" The United States is looking to stronger Chinese cooperation on Afghanistan, piracy, and other international troubles,"

In other words 'the excess baggage' left by the former U.S President Bush is now suddenly bundled as 'International trouble' although Afghanistan was the 'War on Terror' but the real comedy is the attempt to offload the responsibilty to China. 

Apart from adding to the headaches I really want to see why suddenly China's has to help jump into into Afghanistan and like iraq it's was not something that many nations had agreed on from the begining.

The press seems to be clowning around as usual trying to frame Afghanistan as a responsibility of the global community and if my suspicions are correct there will be some pressuring from the U.S (not quite blackmail yet) that their co-operation will ease the Taiwan-China tensions and weapons sales by the U.S.

Throughout history China has never shown any extreme aggressiveness outside it's territories and it wasn't until the recently released report of China's defensive military spending to the world that has conincidently struck U.S interests who now want China involved with their personal affairs.

Note that the journalist in this article didn't quite do their homework to know that his claim on China lacking transparency in their military spending, it seems after China released their last report and also advised on the following year's budget still simply isn't enough for some people, who knows what kind of figures these people want China to produce to make it believable.

China has their own troubles at home and that alone has higher priority, the same reason why it has lead to it's increased military spending. 

"It also faces strategic maneuvers and containment from the outside while having to face disruption and sabotage by separatist and hostile forces from the inside."

"China has long feared being surrounded by hostile forces on its extensive borders, whether by Russia in the north and west, India to the southwest or allies of the United States in the east, including South Korea, Japan and Taiwan".

Well I don't know about the part about 'fear' but I know China is aware of who can be a threat to their security.

China's past military involvement in the global community was never really acknowledged by the U.S, their latest military involvement was fighting piracy and that of course was hardly mentioned by the press at all. Last year China the 13th largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions while U.S, Britain, Russia and Australia participation fell back past the 40th position.

China help is now sought in support of U.S interests and we don't know if that involves military operations or just helping to clean up the mess.

The picture on is comedy, Asians already have issues with mainstream media representation and non-asians trying to represent asians, first it's the culture stealing, then stereotype portrayal, followed by media biases and facts distortion, now it's China national flag representation... what next? They could have  stuck an asian American there or something but then again that would have only made the xenophobic's shake in their boots.

We all know 'America' would never be caught dead near a Chinese Communist flag, why now? China-US relationshas but strained in the past by Bush's administration but do wonder if China think differently of U.S now that Obama is in office.