The U.S. Should Strengthen Relationship With the Chinese Military

President Obama plans on making a trip next month to Beijing to discuss topics ranging from climate change, the global financial crisis, and nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea. While these are all very important topics for President Obama, the last one that is even more important is increasing the relations between the U.S. and Chinese military forces. While China, at one time, was very isolationist and kept to itself, in recent years, China has been expanding its interests around the world. Already, China has sent a small number of ships to Somalia to help the other large powers fight pirates in the Indian Ocean.

What’s unfortunate, though, is that, despite the fact China is rapidly modernizing their military and are expanding their international interests, the United States and China have no understanding on how to deal with each other over misunderstandings when it comes to their military forces. What is even more bizarre and counterproductive is that, during the highest periods of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, we had more relations between military forces than we currently have now with the People’s Liberation Army of China.

Instead, what we have with China is a tense relationship in which we expect them to do so many things such as cut back on carbon emissions and help us stop North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons. More important than any of that (both will naturally fall into place) is the agreement and a relationship with the Chinese military that develops into another very powerful nation that is an ally of ours. While America is going to continue growing into a very powerful nation, China is going to grow at a much faster rate as it races to catch up with the already fast developing America.

Because of that, it is incredibly dangerous for America not to try developing a relationship with the Chinese military. Because they are rapidly developing a modernized military that has the ability to deploy overseas, we should be working together with them on issues such as a nuclear North Korea, Iraq (because they need the oil a lot more than we do) and other unstable areas around the world. How do we respond if a Chinese plane and an American plane just so happen to bump into each other? For eleven days, Americans were held in 2001 because of this exact situation. A Chinese jet bumped into an America recon plane. The Chinese pilot was never found.

These are situations that should be taken care of and have rules already set in place. Instead of worrying about China becoming the next “big threat,” we should be focusing on how to better develop a relationship between the two nations. China is never going to try and go to war with America simply because there’s nothing to gain from it. We are both very large powers, but inevitably, we are both very nuclear powers and a war between the two of us would result in total annihilation on both parts.

President Obama should, next month, invite some of the Chinese generals back to America to sit down and speak with Admiral Mullen and General Cartwright, to name a few, to try and determine what are some ways that the United States and China can develop a working relationship. It would give both nations a better understanding of how things are done, but also allow for the blueprints of a set of rules and strategies to be put in place for the future. China is only going to become more global as they attempt to gain more natural resources from around the world. It is important that we have strategies set up to make sure there nothing catostrophic happens from a very simple accident.