The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, arrived in Beijing yesterday for a four-day visit that aims to put US-Chinese military relations back on track after last year's NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, US officials said.
However, his hosts are likely to take exception to his continued refusal to rule out a National Missile Defence (NMD) system for the US, to which the Chinese are strongly opposed, in comments made to journalists en route to the country.
Mr Cohen's visit follows the failed test of the proposed NMD at the weekend, in which a missile failed to hit and destroy a dummy warhead sitting on top of another missile, but he says the failure does not rule out further development of the system.
Mr Cohen will meet President Jiang Zemin tomorrow after addressing officials on US military policy and security interests in Asia, at China's National Defence University.
The Defence Secretary played down the NMD test failure, saying the glitch was in a "routine" area and not in the more sophisticated rocket science behind the plan.
Russia and China are adamantly opposed to the system, which is aimed at shielding the United States from attacks from so-called "rogue" states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. US allies in Europe are also unenthusiastic and worried it could lead to a renewed arms race.