Military Hotline Activated Between China and the United States
12 April 2008
Chinese Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie and his U.S. counterpart Defence Secretary Robert Gates spoke to each other for about 30 minutes on Thursday over the direct telephone hotline between the U.S. and PRC defence ministries. This was the first time that the hotline was used since its establishment last year.
The conversation over the hotline has been confirmed by both Pentagon and the PRC Ministry of National Defence (MND).
During their conversation, both ministers welcomed the opening of the direct line, and believed that it would help enhance the consultations, mutual trust, coordination and cooperation between the two countries.
Gates congratulated Liang on his recent appointment as the Defence Minister of the PRC, and used the opportunity to urge the PRC to work with the newly elected leaders of Taiwan, and reiterated the United States opposes any unilateral effort by either side to change the status quo.
Liang urged the U.S. to stop selling its weapons to Taiwan and abide by its repeated commitments to adhere to the one-China policy and the three Sino-U.S. joint communiqués.
A U.S. DoD spokesman said they discussed “building on the positive momentum in military-to-military relations, encouraging the trend of greater transparency at all levels in which substantive dialogue can help avoid miscalculation.”
The idea of a military hotline between the defence ministries of the two countries can be traced back to the aftermath of the 1996 Taiwan Crisis. The U.S. has raised the idea of a direct telephone link at the defence ministry level many time. In April 2006, the Chinese President Hu Jintao and the U.S. President George W Bush agreed in principle to improve the military dialogue between the two countries.
A technical team from the Pentagon was sent to Beijing in April 2007 to discuss various details on the hotline.
During his visit to Beijing in November 2007, Gates finalised the details with then Defence Minister General Cao Gangchuan on the establishment of the military hotline.
Shortly before the Sino-US military hotline was activated, a telephone hotline was established between the defence ministries of the PRC and Russia. Defence ministers of the two countries made their first conversation over the hotline on 14 March.