A top Chinese military officer began
a six-day visit to the United States on Monday amid rising tensions
over Beijing's assertive stance in the South China Sea.
US army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno (L) meets with Fan Changlong, Deputy Chaiman of the Central Military Commission at Bayi Building in Beijing on February 21, 2014
General Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of
China's Central Military Commission, started his tour in San Diego with a
stop at the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and will hold talks on
Thursday at the Pentagon with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter,
officials said.
Carter and other top US officials have
recently castigated China over its push to build artificial islands in
the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
At a recent security conference in
Singapore, Carter called for an immediate end to land reclamation by
countries in the region, and accused China of being out of step with
international rules.
"Turning an underwater rock into an
airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit
restrictions on international air or maritime transit," the Pentagon
chief said at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
conference.
President Barack Obama earlier this
month also warned Beijing over its tactics, saying territorial disputes
could not be solved by "throwing elbows."
Before heading to Washington, Fan was due to visit a Boeing factory in Seattle and a US Army base at Fort Hood in Texas.
Fan is considered a counterpart to Carter, US officials said.
The general's visit is part of a
years-long effort to build a regular dialogue between the American and
Chinese armed forces to defuse potential tensions and avoid
miscalculations.
Carter's predecessor, Chuck Hagel, paid a
visit to China in 2014 in a trip that was marked by friction, with each
side trading sharply-worded criticism.
Source: AFP