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China urges Obama team to better military ties

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-20 11:54

With US President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration hours away, China's military on Tuesday called for the new US administration to remove obstacles in bilateral military relations.

"Facing current difficulties in military relations, we demand the United States take concrete measures to remove the obstacles," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Hu Changming said at a news conference to release the defense white paper.

China-US military ties suffered setbacks as the Pentagon announced a $6.5 billion Taiwan arms deal last October. It included 30 Apache attack helicopters and 330 Patriot missiles.

It was the biggest arms sale to Taiwan since China and the United States signed the "August 17 Communique" in 1982, in which the United States agreed to gradually reduce its arms sales to Taiwan.

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Hu said China always values the military relations with the United States as they are in the common interests of the two nations.

"I noted that the US President-elect Obama will take office in a few hours and the current US Defense Secretary Robert Gates will keep his function."

"In the new era, I expect the two sides to make joint efforts to create conditions for the continuous improvement and development of bilateral military ties," Hu said.