China, for its part, has opened the gate of its heavily guarded military bases to U.S. guests. During his trip to China in January 2011, then U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited several military facilities including the command base of the PLA Second Artillery Force, China's strategic missile force.

Shortly before Panetta's visit to China, Chinese and U.S. navies held a joint counter-piracy exercise in the Gulf of Aden. Panetta added that the U.S. Navy will invite China to send a ship to participate in the RIMPAC 2014 exercise, the world's largest international maritime exercise.

But barriers in further developing a military-to-military relationship between China and the United States remain, Luo said. These include U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, U.S. surveillance activities near China's borders and U.S. legislation that restricts Sino-U.S. military exchanges.

These contentious issues have made the bilateral military relationship prone to fluctuations. One of the most recent setbacks occurred in September 2011, when the U.S. administration announced sales of an arms package worth more than $5.8 billion to Taiwan.

New thinking

China and the United States should explore a path of coexistence and establish a new type of relationship that corresponds to their influence, said Liang at the joint press conference with Panetta.

"The two sides should, within the framework of building a Sino-U.S. cooperative partnership, promote a new type of military relations featuring equality, reciprocity and win-win cooperation in an active and pragmatic way," he said.

Liang's call echoed Chinese President Hu Jintao's proposal on building a new type of relationship between China and the United States as major powers at the fourth round of the Sino-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing in May.

The relationship between China and the United States is vastly different from four decades ago, when they first pondered the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations, and even different from a decade ago, said Yuan Peng, Director of the Institute of American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. Beijing's quick ascendance on the world stage, and the fact that its GDP has become the second largest worldwide and is catching up to that of the United States, has caused uneasiness and discomfort in Washington, he wrote in a recent paper published in the Contemporary International Relations journal.

There is now an entrenched perception of China as "a regional military rival, a global economic competitor and a comprehensive political adversary" among U.S. political elites, Yuan said

In its new strategic guidance issued earlier this year, the Pentagon cautioned, "Over the long term, China's emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the U.S. economy and our security in a variety of ways."

Moreover, the relationship between China and the United States is different from relationships between other major powers, Yuan added. It is unlike the balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War because China is no match to the United States in terms of military might and does not seek to overthrow the current international system. It is also different from the United States' military alliances with Europe and Japan, which is based on shared ideologies.

Considering the unique nature of the Sino-U.S. relations today, it is imperative that China and the United States try to forge a new type of relationship, Yuan said.

Liang's calls for a new military-to-military relationship between China and the United States showed China is committed to preventing conventional power politics from taking its toll on Sino-U.S. relations, Jin said. In the history of international relations, the emergence of a new major power has often led to war as it challenged the dominant power at the time, he said.

In an effort to avoid this pattern, China has taken the initiative of increasing military transparency while shouldering more international responsibilities and deepening its involvement in international institutions, Jin said.

At the same time, China expects the United States to acknowledge its newfound status, address China's concerns and give up attempts to encircle China strategically, he added.

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