US general plays down China threat

"Clearly, both the United States and China have enormous military capacity, but equally clearly neither country has the intent to go to war with the other. So absent of intent, I don't find threat," General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"We should not focus on how to fight each other but how to prevent military action. That is what my government is focused on, and that is what my Chinese counterparts here have said their government is focused on."

Pace arrived in Beijing Thursday for a four-visit which as he said is aimed at boosting military ties

Pace said he had discussed the sensitive topic of Taiwan with the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

"It is not surprising that in each of the meetings, the issue of Taiwan came up. It is clearly a fundamental issue with China," he said.

Asked about the possibility of a conflict over Taiwan, he said: "I believe there are good faith efforts among all the leadership to prevent that."

Pace said he had repeated US President George W. Bush's position that the US leader "would not support Taiwan independence" and that Washington wanted the issue to be handled peacefully.

Pace's visit follows a US announcement last month that it plans to provide over 400 missiles to Taiwan.

China's military is proposing officer exchanges and other confidence-building measures with the US Army and may be inching closer to setting up a "hotline" for emergency communication with Washington, according to Pace.

Pace said he immediately agreed to study the proposals put forward Friday by Gen. Liang Guanglie, chief of the PLA's General Staff Department.

"To me this was a very good, open discussion and one that I found very encouraging," Pace told reporters in Beijing.

Liang's proposals included sending Chinese cadets to the Army academy at West Point as well as participating in joint exercises and humanitarian and relief-at-sea operations "that might be able to build trust and confidence amongst our forces."

Military exchanges were largely suspended following a collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter over the South China Sea in 2001. 

Pace said the sides agreed to keep discussing setting up a "hotline" between either military or civilian leaders that would help ease any future friction.

"The Chinese military understands as well as I do that the opportunity to pick up the phone and talk to somebody you know and smooth out misunderstandings quickly is a very important part of relations between two countries," Pace said.