Military Dimensions of U.S.-China Security Cooperation: Retrospective and Future Prospects

摘要

The United States and China have engaged in security cooperation on a variety of international issues since the normalization of relations in 1979. In fact, security cooperation began even before the formal establishment of state-to-state relations. We recall that during the height of the Cold War the two nations demonstrated that when a pressing and shared security concern (in that case, the former Soviet Union) presented itself, Washington and Beijing were capable of working together, extant differences notwithstanding. Security consultations and sometime security cooperation between the two countries continue today. But as the record of security cooperation is reviewed, one comes to the conclusion that, for the most part, U.S.-China security cooperation has been mainly of a political nature and operationalized at a high level of strategic policy coordination. Security cooperation between the two nations has been largely the purview of U.S. and Chinese civilian officials and diplomats, not generals and admirals. In other words, over the course of 30 years of relations, security cooperation between the defense-military establishments of the United States and China -- the uniformed services -- has been the exception rather than the rule. If a serious discussion about future security cooperation between the U.S. Navy and the PLA Navy is to take place -- a leitmotif of this series of conferences as described by the sponsors -- then some of the issues, challenges, and problems from the past need to be confronted even as we look over the horizon. For the purposes of this paper, 'security cooperation' is defined as the two militaries working together to achieve a common objective -- not high-level visits, exchanges, port calls, or other activities that are mainly symbolic or representational in nature.