Visiting China, Pentagon Officers Step Up Dialogue WASHINGTON - Senior Defense Department officials have been accelerating a dialogue with China, carried out through personal visits with Chinese counterparts to establish and strengthen military-to-military relationships. In a flurry of travel by top Pentagon officers, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff, just returned from China - the first visit there by the Air Force's top officer in 15 years. Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, recently hosted his Chinese counterpart here; the Chinese admiral is expected to return in a few weeks to attend a Navy conference, a remarkable second visit within one year. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in China earlier this year, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army's top officer, has a trip to China on his calendar in the coming weeks. That these four-star officers are communicating in person with China's equivalent of the Joint Chiefs is an illustration of the distance the two militaries have traveled since 2001, when a Chinese fighter pilot forced a Navy surveillance plane in international airspace to crash-land on Chinese territory, rupturing relations. It also is a sign of deepening concern about how the United States should respond to a China that is described in Pentagon hallways as a potential adversary, a persistent rival and, optimistically, a future partner in regional stability. The flurry of meetings come as the military extracts itself from a decade of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the security threats in Syria, Iran and the Horn of Africa challenge the Pentagon in carrying out President Obama's order to shift toward the Asia-Pacific region. Budget battles at home have not helped: negotiations with Congress forced Mr. Obama to cancel a trip to Asia this month. His absence overseas left a political vacuum felt by America's allies - and offered Chinese leaders an opportunity to take a star turn on the stage reserved for the president. General Welsh, the Air Force chief, said his mission in China was to seek ways to "diminish the risk of miscommunication, misunderstanding, misperception, as we operate closer and closer to each other in the Pacific region." Although an increase is expected in American combat power in the Pacific region - both on permanent deployment and rotating through bases with the permission of allies and partners - General Welsh knocked down a popular narrative that the Pentagon was defining China as a new adversary to justify its budget as it end wars that followed the Sept. "I'm not looking for a bad guy," he said. I think one of the goals of the American military should always be to try and partner our way out of a job over time. Practically speaking, that day will probably never come, which is why we need a strong and vibrant military. The challenge is in positioning American forces to reassure China's nervous neighbors - and to deter a belligerent North Korea - without needlessly provoking Beijing, which is locked in a series of territorial disputes with some of Washington's closest partners. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, on his third swing through Asia this year, announced this month that the United States would be sending new Navy P-8 maritime patrol aircraft to Japan later this year, in their first deployment outside the United States. Global Hawk surveillance aircraft are to begin rotating through the region next spring. And the Pentagon's newest warplane, the F-35, will be assigned to the region, also in its first deployment overseas, starting in 2017. Admiral Greenert, the Navy chief, said he concluded his time hosting China's top admiral with a sense that "it is incumbent upon us, two great navies, to work together in a deliberate manner, and determine how we are going to interrelate in an area of the world that we both are going to be in." Tensions remain. China routinely complains, and even harasses, American ships and airplanes traveling in international space of the South China Sea, as Beijing pushes the limits of accepted territorial sovereignty in what Pentagon officials say falls short of outright hostilities but is now labeled "lawfare." Admiral Greenert acknowledged that the visit here by Admiral Wu Shengli "wasn't all warm." "It was open," he said, "and I think with due respect for each other - and an acknowledgment for where we stand." He stressed that the Navy, which has deployed in the western Pacific since World War II, now plans to rebalance the traditional 50-50 split with American warships in the Atlantic to become a 60-40 deployment in favor of the Asia-Pacific region. Some of that rebalancing will be carefully devised to add warships to Southeast Asia that are well suited for local security - mine clearing and antipiracy, for example - rather than shifting large warships from the fleet in Japan or from ports in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. Those smaller vessels also have the benefit of being less provocative to China, which is more concerned about big ships. Admiral Greenert said the Chinese delegation was most interested in spending time aboard an American aircraft carrier to learn the complex demands of effectively operating combat aircraft from the open sea, far from the safety of landing strips on solid ground. China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Ukrainian vessel called the Liaoning, last year, but the ship is not expected to become operational until 2015 or later. The first Chinese-built carriers are not expected to be ready for deployment for several years.