Here’s One Way the US-China Relationship Is Improving

Prueher said the mil-to-mil relationship is further complicated by its relatively top-heavy nature. A good chunk of the contacts are between very senior U.S. and Chinese officials, while lower-level bonds haven’t quite developed yet.

“In countries where you have a depth of military-to-military relationships, you have junior officers who have grown up together, they have known each other for 15 years, they have been to schools together, they’ve grown up with personal relationships that enhance the straight military relationships,” Prueher said.  “And of course, in China, these personal relationships transcend any sort of formal agreements you might have. These personal relationships are more important than the formal agreements.” But, he said, “We don’t have the amalgam that holds it together at the lower level.”

But even the higher-level relationships remain shallow. China’s “stratified and very centralized decision-making process” keeps its military officers and officials from doing the kind of exchanges that build trust, said Wallace “Chip” Gregson, a retired Marine three-star who served as assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs from 2009 to 2011.

Nor is there much time to build such relationships, thanks to the U.S. practice of shuffling officials — from the Defense Secretary on down — in and out of office every two to three years. Ralph Jodice, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who served as the U.S. defense attache to China from 2004 to 2007, said Chinese officials had explained to him how they saw their foreign relationships: pengyou, hao pengyou, and lao pengyou — friend, good friend and old friend. The first time a U.S. official visited, they were a pengyou; the second time they were hao pengyou, and the third time they were lao pengyou. The Chinese officials would say that one needed to become an old friend before substantive policy change could happen.

“But then they would turn to the PACOM commander and say, ‘You normally only serve as the PACOM commander for maybe 2 years, maybe 3 years, and we might only see you once or twice, so it’s difficult to become old friends,’” Jodice said. “Quantity has a certain quality of its own.”

There are other obstacles to an easy relationship. In 2000, Congress outlawed mil-to-mil contacts that might create a national security risk by exposing critical information. U.S. officials routinely bemoan a lack of transparency and reciprocity in exchanges, and an overly staged feel to mutual visits. Then there are the increasing points of friction between the countries: U.S. weapons sales and gestures of support for Taiwan, network breaches and data theft, even air and sea operations that bring U.S. and Chinese forces into proximity.

Right now, the U.S. and China work together in several areas, including counterpiracy and counterterrorism missions in the Gulf of Aden. Chinese military officials also pay regular visits to U.S. military educational institutions, like the February visit that brought to the National Defense University a 12-person delegation led by Rear Adm. Li Ji, the head of the Ministry of National Defense Foreign Affairs. A senior defense official said that the mil-to-mil relationship has “sustained positive momentum over the past few years, deepening bilateral engagements and making progress developing risk reduction measures.”

The two militaries have also worked alongside each other in humanitarian assistance exercises, but haven’t really cooperated extensively in them. Gregson says that he doesn’t “sense any willingness from the Chinese to increase their level of participation.”

Many in Congress are dubious about such contacts as well. “Most people on Capitol Hill believe the Chinese get a whole lot more out of it than we do,” said Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., who has worked extensively on China policy.

In Forbes’ estimation, the Pentagon has too long tried to build a relationship by hosting Chinese delegations, visits that produced little in return. Over the past year, he has tried to persuade then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and others to step back and assess what exactly the U.S. is getting for their efforts. “You have a lot of people at the Pentagon that just start saying, ‘The more contact we have, the better it is,” Forbes said. “We always have to have metrics to measure whether our policies are working, and you can’t have a metric to measure if its working if you don’t know what the policy is.”

The Ultimate Question

Still, senior U.S. military leaders appear resolved to nurture the mil-to-mil relationship. In May, David Shear, U.S. assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, criticized China’s activities in the East and South China Seas. But he also said the administration wants to “build transparency and improve understanding with China through mil-to-mil ties.” Last month, Adm. Harry Harris, who leads U.S. Pacific Command, charged China with establishing military posts on its artificially expanded reefs, yet added that he wants his command to foster the relationship with the Chinese military.

That’s in large part because the countries themselves are becoming more and more intertwined. As the U.S. continues its turn towards the Asia-Pacific, bringing two nuclear-armed powers in closer contact with each other, the military-to-military relationship is becoming more important than ever.

“The question of whether war is inevitable is at the base of this,” said Miller, the former policy chief. “This administration in particular has made the calculation that it’s not inevitable, but it's possible, and we want to both work with the Chinese, and at the same time approach that work with them from a position of strong alliances and strong military and other capabilities.”

Beyond the bilateral relationship, the U.S. will need China’s help as transnational threats such as the Islamic State continue to metastasize. Pentagon planners also want the Chinese military’s aid in humanitarian and disaster-response missions.

Here’s the ultimate question: can a mil-to-mil relationship help a crisis from becoming a war?

“Put it this way, it can’t be done by a military commander somewhere out there in the Pacific,” Gregson said. “You’re not going to do a military-to-military discussion in the middle of a crisis...I see no circumstances where a senior military officer on the Chinese side could do that without risking their position or worse.”

Still, policymakers should adopt the stance that mil-to-mil ties are a normal, healthy activity between governments, even ones at odds, Kamphausen says. “Things we ought to get done together ought to serve both interests, as well as international security goals.”