Pentagon Reviewing, Not Suspending, Contacts With China
Wednesday, May 02, 2001
FROM FOXNEWS.COM
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Wednesday that future contacts with the Chinese military are under review, but it withdrew a directive from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to suspend all contacts.
Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, speaking for Rumsfeld, told reporters that the Rumsfeld aide who wrote the memo had "misinterpreted the secretary's intentions" by declaring a suspension of military-to-military relations.
"His actual intention is for all elements of the military-to-military program to be reviewed and approved on a case by case basis by the Department of Defense," Quigley said several hours after the memo was leaked to reporters.
Quigley declined to say who wrote the memo. He said Rumsfeld had not seen it before it was sent to the military service secretaries, the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior civilian officials in the Pentagon.
AP
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
The memo said Rumsfeld was directing "the suspension of all Department of Defense programs, contacts and activities with the People's Republic of China until further notice." Several officials told reporters that the order took effect Monday, the day it was distributed inside the Pentagon. Later, Quigley said that a corrected version would be sent to make clear that military-to-military ties were not suspended.
Monday's memo was quite detailed. It said Rumsfeld had directed that defense attaches abroad be permitted to attend social functions, as part of their usual activities, in which Chinese officials may be present. But there were to be no Pentagon contacts with Chinese diplomatic representatives in Washington, it said.
The confusion over the future of U.S.-Chinese military relations became public on the day that a team of U.S. civilian defense contractors arrived in China to assess what would be required to return the Navy surveillance plane that made an emergency landing at a military airfield on Hainan island on April 1 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet.
The Lockheed Martin technicians spent about four hours aboard the Navy plane on Wednesday to begin their assessment. They were to return to the plane for a final day of work on Thursday.
In a brief appearance before reporters earlier Wednesday before the internal memo leaked to the news media, Rumsfeld made no mention of his intentions regarding military-to-military contacts with China.
He said it wasn't clear whether the Navy spy plane would be flown off the island or, alternatively, be disassembled and brought by ship or air.
"There's an assessment team on the ground at the present time," he said. "We've received some reports back, but there's nothing conclusive on that point."
Quigley said there were no military-to-military contacts with China scheduled for May, and the Pentagon had said previously it was going to reconsider how to proceed with contacts beyond this month.
U.S.-Chinese military relations have traveled a rocky road. The Pentagon broke off ties after the Chinese military's deadly 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, and contacts had just begun to grow again when they were halted in 1996 after China lobbed missiles toward Taiwan.
Beijing broke off military ties in early 1999 after U.S. planes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia during NATO's campaign against Slobodan Milosevic. The Chinese never accepted the U.S. explanation that it was an accident, and didn't resume defense relations for several months.
Just last month, shortly after the collision near Hainan island, Quigley defended the military-to-military program.
Despite the diplomatic tensions of the moment, the exchange program is "still worth pursuing" because it fosters communication between officers from the two nations and helps each side understand how the other thinks, Quigley said April 9.
