Sign of shared confidence

SOME SAW THE VISITING US SECRETARY OF State Chuck Hagel and his Chinese hosts "trade barbs". Others saw them "face off" in public. Still others were surprised at their "adversarial statements".

The joint press conference on Tuesday featuring Hagel and his Chinese counterpart, Defence Minister Chang Wanquan, appeared less upbeat than people would normally anticipate. Especially with the substantive seven-point consensus on improving military-to-military interactions they have reached in the background.

But such display of divergences, or as some Western media put it, "tensions", is actually a sign of a shared confidence that their understanding and trust of each other are strong enough to withstand such straightforwardness.