Boost to Sino-US military ties

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel started his four-day official visit to China on Monday in Qingdao, Shandong province, where he visited China's sole aircraft carrier, Liaoning, which showed Chinese military's sincerity in improving Sino-US military ties by further raising military transparency.

The US should also make more efforts to improve Sino-US military ties. Hagel's visit is the third by a US secretary of defense in a little more than three years - his predecessors Robert Gates and Leon Panetta visited China in January 2011 and September 2012 - indicating the importance Washington attaches to developing military ties with Beijing.

Last year, Beijing and Washington initiated efforts to build a "new type of major power relationship". During their summit at Sunnylands, California, in June 2013, President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to build a new type of major power relationship to prove that a rising power and an established power are not necessarily destined for confrontation. Based on this understanding, Sino-US military relations have started moving forward in three areas.