China Takes Hard Line With U.S. on Taiwan

China rebuffed a U.S. proposal for a clear timetable of strategic defense talks on the first day of a long-delayed visit to Beijing by Robert Gates, the U.S. defense secretary, and indicated that Taiwan remains the single biggest obstacle to improving the world's most important bilateral relationship.

While agreeing to narrower defense exchanges some time in the first half of the year, Gates's Chinese counterpart, General Liang Guanglie, also made clear that China would suspend military ties again if the U.S. continues to sell weapons to Taiwan, the island that Beijing regards as a rebel province.

Gates arrived in Beijing Sunday on a three-day mission to deepen and stabilize military-to-military relations, which China has repeatedly suspended for political reasons over the last decade--most recently last January in response to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)

As his trip falls just ahead of a state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao next week, which both sides hope will go well, Gates had hoped Chinese officials would agree to set dates for a series of high-level defense talks and a visit to Washington by Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army.

Although Pentagon officials had been hoping for a more enthusiastic response from Liang on Monday, the reaction was not unexpected.

Some U.S. officials and China analysts believe that China's civilian leadership is more keen on building the military-to-military relationship with Washington than the PLA. As a result, some expect Gates's meeting with President Hu on Tuesday to be visibly warmer than the news conference with Liang.

But Chinese experts on U.S.-China relations say Beijing is highly unlikely to show any flexibility on the issue of U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan--especially in the run-up to a Communist Party leadership change in 2012.

Gates asked the Chinese military to look at American arms sales to Taiwan as a political matter, and not let Beijing's objections to the transactions lead to a suspension of military ties.

'We are in strong agreement that in order to reduce the chances of miscommunication, misunderstanding, miscalculation it is important our military-to-military ties are solid, consistent and not subject to shifting political winds,' Gates said.

He also proposed establishing a broader strategic defense dialogue that would include in-depth discussions on Chinese and U.S. policies on nuclear weapons, missile defenses, cyberattacks and space.

Both countries have long tried to prevent friction between their armed forces from affecting their overall relationship, which has improved steadily over the last three decades despite U.S. legislation that obliges Washington to help Taiwan defend itself.

But tensions on the military front are having increasing impact on policy-making in Washington and Beijing as China's growing military power starts to challenge the supremacy that the U.S. has enjoyed in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of World War II.

Those tensions were evident in a series of public disputes last year over issues including China's more forceful territorial claims in the East and South China seas, Beijing's close links to North Korea, and U.S. joint military exercises near China's coast.

Chinese state media has been fiercely critical of U.S. defense policy in Asia, which it says is designed to contain a rising China, but has been relatively restrained in recent days in an apparent effort to ease the atmosphere ahead of Hu's visit to the U.S.

In recent months, U.S. officials have been offering their Chinese counterparts in-depth private briefings on U.S. nuclear policy and other military issues, in hopes of prompting Beijing to reciprocate.

But at a news conference Monday, Liang said only that China was 'studying' Gates's request for a deeper strategic dialogue, and declined to agree on specific dates for future defense talks, announcing only that they would occur in the first half of 2011.

China agreed instead to set up a working group to discuss the military relationship, as well as to renew a deal, originally struck in October 2009, to expand high-level military education exchanges and expand cooperation on counterpiracy exercises and disaster-relief preparation.

Liang said he recognized the U.S. desire for military-to-military ties that are uninterrupted by political disagreements. But his emphatic denunciation of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan made plain that future weapons transfers likely would again threaten military relations.

'China's position has been clear and consistent: We are against it,' Liang said. 'U.S. arms sales to Taiwan seriously damage China's core interests. And we do not want to see that happen again.'

He added: 'We hope the United States will pay sufficient attention to the concerns to the Chinese side and take measures to gradually remove or reduce the obstacles that stand in the way of our military-to-military relations.'

Gates also met Xi Jinping, China's vice president, who was effectively anointed as the country's next president and Communist Party chief in October when he was appointed a vice chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, which controls the PLA.

Some experts suggested that China was responding to U.S. demands for greater military transparency by allowing Gates to visit the headquarters of China's Second Artillery Corps, which controls its nuclear and conventional missiles, on Wednesday.

However, others pointed out that Donald Rumsfeld was also allowed to visit the same headquarters when he visited as defense secretary back in 2005.

Pentagon officials argue that they are trying to use incremental steps, such as the working-group meetings the Chinese officials agreed to Monday, to build trust and move to the kind of broader dialogue that Gates has been pushing for.

Some officials hope that if they can demonstrate openness with the Chinese, and successfully complete a series of dialogues on basic defense issues, over time Chinese leaders will grow more comfortable with a discussion that goes beyond talking points and tackles the deeper strategic issues Gates believes are critical to discuss.

Before the trip, officials rebuffed suggestions the visit was just for show ahead of Hu's visit, and they also pushed back against suggestions that Gates needed to visit any new facilities, previously off limits to American leaders.