US calls for closer military ties with China
KUALA LUMPUR: A US defence chief called for closer military ties with China and for the two powers to shed “Cold War” thinking on Tuesday as he highlighted a recent naval encounter that could have gone wrong.
The chief of US forces in the Pacific, Admiral William J. Fallon, was asked to confirm a US newspaper report of an uncomfortably close encounter between US warships and a Chinese submarine in the Pacific last month.
Confirming the gist of the Washington Times report, Fallon said the submarine had been detected at close quarters by an aircraft carrier and its accompanying warships.
The Washington Times said the submarine had stalked the USS Kitty Hawk and surfaced within range of its torpedoes and missiles in “ocean waters” near the Japanese island of Okinawa.
“The characterisation of stalking an aircraft carrier is rather sensational and I think it’s probably not close to being accurate,” Fallon told reporters in Malaysia, where he is attending an annual meeting of Asia-Pacific defence chiefs.
But he added: “The fact that you have military units that would operate in close proximity to each other offers the potential for events that would not be what we would like to see - the potential for miscalculation.” reuters
Original article posted here.
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