The American and Chinese militaries took micro-steps on Monday toward smoothing over years of conflict and suspicion, but China’s defense minister sharply defended his country’s arms buildup, pointed to American military sales to Taiwan as a continuing obstacle and deflected an American request for “in-depth strategic dialogue” on nuclear missile defense, space and cyber warfare.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had set low expectations for his three-day trip, likely his last as defense secretary, which he undertook after President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China ordered their militaries to begin working out their differences ahead of Mr. Hu’s visit next week to the White House. The first meeting here bore out that caution, as well as predictions by Pentagon officials that the visit would be difficult and provide no breakthroughs.
But it did provide a clear reflection of the Chinese military’s growing confidence in its dealings with the United States.
Regarding American concerns over China’s new weaponry, including a radar-evading jet fighter and an antiship ballistic missile potentially capable of hitting an American aircraft carrier, the Chinese defense minister, General Liang Guanglie, suggested that the United States was overreacting to a simple effort to modernize.
“We can by no means call ourselves an advanced military force,” General Liang said at a joint news conference with Mr. Gates, held at the enormous Chinese Ministry of Defense after an elaborate welcoming ceremony of goose-stepping Chinese troops. “The gap between us and that of advanced countries is at least two to three decades.” He added that China was interested only in its own security and that “there are some people always in the world who want to label China’s military development a so-called threat to the world.”
On Taiwan, the general implied that any further sale of arms sales would disrupt relations and prompt China to cut off military ties with Washington, as it has repeatedly in the past.
“We do not want to see that happen again,” General Liang said. He concluded, “Neither do we hope that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan will disrupt our military to military relationship.”
Mr. Gates and General Liang did announce a handful of minor developments, among them the establishment of a working group to talk about future talks and the visit to Washington by the chief of the People Liberation Army’s general staff sometime in the first half of this year. But the American side’s request for a more specific date was frustrated.
But General Liang responded to Mr. Gates’ proposal for an “in-depth strategic dialogue” between the U.S. and China on nuclear missile defense, space and cyber warfare only by saying “we are studying it.”
Still, Mr. Gates took a positive tone on the contacts with the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army. “I come away from these meetings convinced that the P.L.A. leadership is as committed to fulfilling the mandate of our two presidents as I am,” Mr. Gates said at the news conference.
In recent years China’s military has grown increasingly forceful with the country’s political leadership, a fact Mr. Gates obliquely acknowledged to reporters en route to Beijing. Asked if he thought China’s political leaders were pressing for improved military relations with the United States even though the Chinese military did not necessarily want them, Mr. Gates replied, “I don’t know the answer to that question.”
American military officials say there is a growing danger of a confrontation between American and Chinese forces in the waters of the Pacific, where Chinese ships have begun to challenge the United States Navy. China’s next generation of anti-ship missiles, American officials say, could force the United States to keep its warships a long way from Chinese shores, and from Taiwan. Ultimately, they say, the new technologies could give China an ability to operate hundreds of miles beyond its shores with a freedom it has never before enjoyed.
Later on Monday, Mr. Gates met at the Great Hall with Vice President Xi Jinping, the heir apparent to Mr. Hu. “I believe the two sides should jointly and earnestly implement the consensus of our heads of state and make sure that our bilateral relations progress on the right track," Mr. Xi said in a statement for the cameras, shortly before reporters were pushed out of the room while Mr. Gates was making his remarks.
Beyond a commitment to continue talking, the meeting between Mr. Gates and General Liang on Monday appeared to produce little of substance, said Huang Jing, a visiting professor and expert on China’s military and leadership at the National University of Singapore.
“The Chinese are playing tai chi with the Americans,” he said, referring to the Chinese martial art of self-defense. “Gates is going out; there are a lot of uncertainties about the Obama administration, its policy and the likelihood that there is going to be a second term. They want to wait until the dust settles down in Washington.”
Nor, he said, is the relationship likely to change much in the near future. China’s military sees Beijing as a rising power and Washington as a declining one, he said, and so it has little incentive to accede to the Pentagon’s requests for more transparency and a more responsible approach toward regional peace and security, especially on North Korea and territory disputes with regional neighbors.