By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service
BEIJING, Sept. 19, 2012 – Defense
Secretary Leon E. Panetta told a group of Chinese officers and cadets today
that the level of cooperation they and their U.S. counterparts achieve will
determine much of the Asia-Pacific region’s future stability and prosperity.
“One day, it will be your responsibility
to help carry the U.S.-China relationship forward,” he said.
The secretary delivered a speech to some
300 members of the People’s Liberation Army’s engineering academy here on the
second full day of his three-day trip to China.
Panetta told them the meetings he has
attended during his visit, including one earlier today with Vice President Xi
Jinping, made clear that leaders of both countries are working to build “a
sustained and substantive United States-China defense relationship that
supports the broader United States-China cooperative partnership.”
That partnership began to take root in
February 1972, he noted, when then-President Richard M. Nixon visited Beijing
as the first U.S. head of state to visit the People’s Republic of China,
established in 1949.
Panetta said one of his early U.S.
government jobs was in Nixon’s administration. The president’s historic trip
was known then as “the week that changed the world,” he added: “A week when our
two countries cast aside decades of fear, division, and estrangement in favor
of engagement.”
Chinese leaders’ reception of Nixon set
the course for the current engagement between the United States and China on “a
full range of diplomatic, economic, and security issues,” he said.
Now, he added, the relationship between
the two major powers, the world’s two largest economies, will be essential for
global security and prosperity in the 21st century.
Panetta cautioned that while he believes
deeply that the U.S-China relationship holds long-term promise, “it is clear
that this journey is not yet complete – particularly for our two militaries.”
In the security realm, suspicion and a
“lack of strategic trust” often gain more attention than cooperation and
engagement, the secretary said.
“In [the] spirit of building trust,” he
said, “let me share with you today my thoughts on the role that the United
States military wants to play in the Asia-Pacific region … [and] how a
constructive U.S.-China defense relationship complements that vision.”
The United States’ strategic focus on
the Asia-Pacific region rests on the recognition that America’s security and
prosperity in the 21st century “will be linked to the security and prosperity
of Asia more than any other region on Earth,” he said. The economically dynamic
region is of growing importance to U.S. diplomatic, economic, development and
security interests, Panetta said, noting that it also faces clear threats that
include terrorism, the prospect of natural disasters, maritime security issues,
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, piracy and drug trafficking.”
In response to both opportunities and
threats, the secretary said, the U.S. government is expanding trade and
economic ties, increasing diplomatic engagement and developmental assistance,
and rebalancing its military forces.
Despite U.S. defense budget cuts, the
Defense Department will expand training and exercises with regional allies and
partners, and will build new defense relationships with “a whole range of
countries,” he said.
“We are also developing new approaches
to military presence and posture across the Asia-Pacific region,” Panetta said.
“[And] we are making investments in the capabilities we need to operate and
partner effectively.”
As an example, he added, the United
States is enhancing its ballistic missile defense capabilities in the region.
“Let me make clear that it is aimed
solely at one threat: the threat from North Korea,” the secretary emphasized.
“It is no secret that the United States is deeply concerned about the threat of
North Korean ballistic missiles striking our allies, striking the United
States, striking our forward-deployed forces [and] striking our homeland.”
North Korea has tested nuclear devices
and continues to enrich uranium and test ballistic missiles, he noted.
Ballistic missile defense systems, like the rebalancing effort itself, are
designed to foster peace and sustain the region’s security and prosperity,
Panetta said.
For more than 60 years, he said, America
has fought to counter tyranny and support a system of rules, norms and institutions
in Asia that underpinned the region’s transformation into the “economic
powerhouse it represents today.”
As it rebalances to the region, the
United States will continue to be guided by what Panetta called a basic set of
principles, including:
-- Free and open commerce;
-- A just international order that
emphasizes rights and responsibilities of nations and fidelity to the rule of
law;
-- Open access by all to the shared
domains of sea, air, space and cyberspace; and
-- Resolving disputes peacefully without
coercion or the use of force.
Panetta said China’s rise as a major
power “made it a key stakeholder in this system,” under which all Asia-Pacific
nations can “work together to achieve common objectives – particularly in areas
like maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and
peacekeeping.”
Those opportunities won’t come to pass,
he said, unless the U.S. and Chinese governments and militaries work together
to seize them. “That is why I will continue to make it a priority for the
Department of Defense to expand our defense dialogues, our defense exchanges
with China,” he added.
Renewed senior-level engagement and
military exchanges between the two nations have built momentum, Panetta said,
noting that less than a week ago, U.S. and Chinese ships participated in a
joint counterpiracy exercise in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia.
“This is an area of strategic and
economic priority to both of our countries, and both the United States and
China benefit from ensuring the free flow of commerce through the gulf,” he
added. The exercise allowed the two navies to increase their capacity to
confront the threat of piracy and gave U.S. and Chinese sailors a chance to
work alongside each other toward a common objective, he said.
“These kinds of opportunities are
invaluable when it comes to building trust between our two militaries,” the
secretary said. He added he has invited China to send a ship to participate in
the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, exercise in 2014. RIMPAC is the world’s
largest multilateral naval exercise, held every two years off Hawaii. This
year’s exercise involved more than 20 nations’ navies.
Panetta said he is committed to
identifying additional opportunities for Chinese participation in multilateral
exercises in pursuing the goal of building a military-to-military relationship
between the two nations that is healthy, stable, reliable, continuous and
transparent.
Some see the U.S. focus on the Pacific
“in terms of a zero-sum game, where China’s rise will inevitably put it into
conflict with the United States,” the secretary said, but Chinese President Hu
Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama have rejected that view. “It is not what
our new defense strategy is all about,” he added.
The rebalance is an attempt not to
contain China, but to engage it and expand its role in the Pacific, Panetta
told the Chinese officers and cadets. Like many Americans, he added, he admires
China’s transformation over the past decades.
“China’s rise has brought millions out
of poverty and helped to make the world a more prosperous place,” he said. “I
believe that it can also make the world a more secure place, if we work
together … to build an enduring foundation for military-to-military relations
between the United States and China.”
Both nations’ people can create
opportunities today as they did 40 years ago, the secretary said, to move toward
more cooperation and “a better and safer future for our children.”
Panetta is the first U.S. defense
secretary to visit the academy, and he thanked the school’s leaders for their
hospitality during his visit. The secretary traveled to Japan before arriving
in China, and will end his trip later this week with a stop in New Zealand.
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