U.S. appeals to China to restore military ties

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said China's decision to break off military-to-military contacts between the Pacific powers earlier this year could undercut regional stability.

He urged Beijing to accept the “reality” that Washington is committed to arming Taiwan, like it or not.

“It has been clear to everyone during the more than 30 years since normalization that interruptions in our military relationship with China will not change United States policy toward Taiwan,” Gates told a security conference in Singapore.

China broke off military-to-military contacts after the Obama administration notified Congress in January of a plan to sell Taiwan up to US$6.4 billion worth of arms.

To underscore its displeasure over the continued sales, China took the extraordinary step of turning down a proposed fence-mending visit by Gates during his trip to Asia.

“There is a real cost to any absence of military-to-military relations,” Gates told the conference, where he held talks with top ministers from across Asia with the exception of the Chinese, who sent a lower-level representative.

Gates said “sustained and reliable” contacts between the two militaries were needed to reduce the risk of “miscommunication, misunderstanding and miscalculation” that could lead inadvertently to conflict.

He also called it the “collective responsibility” of Asian states to address North Korean “provocations”, increasing pressure on a reluctant China to rebuke its long-time ally.

But Gates and other U.S. officials suggested the United States was looking beyond measures in the U.N. Security Council and could act unilaterally or in concert with its allies to increase Pyongyang's isolation.

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