The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

ponents to U.S.-China military-to-military contacts
suggest that the United States should limit these exchanges
to high-level strategic dialogues, and keep
the PLA out of touch with the U.S. military at the operational
level. The United States would be better off
keeping its military superiority over China and focus
on measures that will ensure the safety of U.S. military
in the Western Pacific, even if meant to stand firm
on China’s military challenges. 232
The Chinese, however, have an entirely different
take on U.S.-China military relations. They hold the
following views: 233
• The most fundamental problem in the U.S.-
China military-to-military relationship is the
lack of trust between the two nations. Without
this trust, this relationship is not sustainable.
• China blames the United States for its continued
perception of China as an enemy. With its
antagonistic view, the United States takes every
development in China as a threat. Particularly,
the United States never respects China’s rightful
need to modernize its military power.
• The Chinese maintain that they have a consistent
and pragmatic view of its relationship with
the United States: it is neither a friend nor an enemy
(非友非敌). China accepts that it will never
become an allied friend to the United States, but
it can try to avoid becoming a deadly enemy.
China holds its relationship with the United
States as the most important one among its key
foreign relations (重中之重) and will do everything
possible to preserve this relationship. The
Chinese argue that the United States has an ambivalent
attitude toward China; and U.S. policy
toward China has vacillated between engage-
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