Onus on US to further deepen ties
The annexes of two military agreements, one on "notification of military crisis" and the other on "encounters in the air", were among the 49 outcomes of President Xi Jinping's state visit to the United States. The documents are the fruits of the two countries' continuous efforts to build a healthy military-to-military relationship and deepen strategic mutual trust.
The annexes were signed as part of "two mutual trust mechanisms", which refer to a reporting system on major military operations and a code of safe conduct on naval and air force encounters.
The groundbreaking "two mutual trust mechanisms" were proposed by Xi during his meeting with US President Barack Obama in Sunnylands, California, in June 2013. During Obama's visit to China in November 2014, the two countries signed two Memorandums of Understanding on Confidence Building Measures.