U.S. leaders have applied military contacts as one tool and point of leverage in the broader policy toward the People's Republic of China (PRC). The first part of this CRS Report discusses policy issues regarding such military-to-military (mil-to-mil) contacts. The second part provides a record of such contacts since 1993, when the United States resumed exchanges after suspending them in response to the Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. Congress has exercised important oversight. Since the mid-1970s, even before the normalization of relations with Beijing, the debate over policy toward the PRC has examined how military ties might advance U.S. security interests, beginning with the imperatives of the Cold War. In January 1980, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown visited China and laid the groundwork for a relationship with the PRC's military, collectively called the People's Liberation Army (PLA), intended to consist of strategic dialogue, reciprocal exchanges in functional areas, and arms sales. Furthermore, President Ronald Reagan changed policy in 1981 to remove the ban on arms sales to China. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger visited Beijing in September 1983. In 1984, U.S. policy makers worked to advance discussions on military technological cooperation with China. There were direct commercial sales to the PLA that included Sikorsky Aircraft's sale of 24 S-70C transport helicopters (an unarmed version of the Black Hawk helicopter) and General Electric's sale of five gas turbine engines for two naval destroyers. Between 1985 and 1987, the United States also agreed to four programs of government-to-government foreign military sales (FMS): modernization of artillery ammunition production facilities; modernization of avionics in F-8 fighters; sale of four Mark-46 anti-submarine torpedoes; and sale of four AN/TPQ-37 artillery-locating radars. The United States suspended mil-to-mil contacts and arms sales in response to the Tiananmen Crackdown in June 1989. (Although the killing of peaceful demonstrators took place beyond just Tiananmen Square in the capital of Beijing on June 4, 1989, the crackdown is commonly called the Tiananmen Crackdown in reference to the square that was the focal point of the nationwide pro-democracy movement.) Approved in February 1990, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY1990-FY1991 ( P.L. 101-246 ) enacted into law the sanctions imposed on arms sales and other cooperation, while allowing for waivers in the general U.S. national interest. In April 1990, China canceled the program (called "Peace Pearl") to upgrade the avionics of the F-8 fighters. In December 1992, President George H.W. Bush closed the four cases of suspended FMS programs, returning PRC equipment, reimbursing unused funds, and delivering sold items without support. In the fall of 1993, President Bill Clinton began to reengage the PRC leadership up to the highest level and across the board, including the PLA, after suspensions over the crisis in 1989. However, results were limited and the military relationship did not regain the closeness reached in the 1980s, when the United States and China cooperated strategically against the Soviet Union and such cooperation included arms sales to the PLA. Improvements and deteriorations in overall bilateral relations affected mil-to-mil contacts, which had close ties in 1997-1998 and 2000, but were marred by the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, mistaken NATO bombing of the PRC embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, and the EP-3 aircraft collision crisis in 2001. In 2001, President George W. Bush continued the policy of engagement with the PRC, while the Pentagon skeptically reviewed and cautiously resumed a program of mil-to-mil exchanges. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reviewed the mil-to-mil contacts to assess the effectiveness of the exchanges in meeting U.S. objectives of reciprocity and transparency. Soon after the review began, on April 1, 2001, a PLA Navy F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea. Upon surviving the collision, the EP-3's crew made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. The PLA detained the 24 U.S. Navy personnel for 11 days. Instead of acknowledging that the PLA had started aggressive interceptions of U.S. reconnaissance flights in December 2000 and apologizing for the accident, top PRC ruler Jiang Zemin demanded an apology and compensation from the United States. Rumsfeld limited mil-to-mil contacts after the crisis, subject to case-by-case approval, after the White House objected to a suspension of contacts with the PLA as outlined in an April 30 Defense Department memo. Rumsfeld told reporters on May 8, 2001, that he decided against visits to China by U.S. ships or aircraft and against social contacts, because "it really wasn't business as usual." Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz reported to Congress on June 8, 2001, that mil-to-mil exchanges for 2001 remained under review by Secretary Rumsfeld and exchanges with the PLA would be conducted "selectively and on a case-by-case basis." The United States did not transport the damaged EP-3 out of China until July 3, 2001. The Bush Administration hosted PRC Vice President Hu Jintao in Washington in the spring of 2002 (with an honor cordon at the Pentagon) and President Jiang Zemin in Crawford, TX, in October 2002. Afterwards, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in late 2002, resumed the Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) with the PLA (first held in 1997) and, in 2003, hosted General Cao Gangchuan, a Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Defense Minister. General Richard Myers (USAF), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China in January 2004, as the highest ranking U.S. military officer to do so since November 2000. Still, mil-to-mil interactions remained "exceedingly limited," according to the Commander of the Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral William Fallon, who visited China to advance mil-to-mil contacts in September 2005. He discussed building relationships at higher and lower ranks, cooperation in responding to natural disasters and controlling avian flu, and reducing tensions. Fallon also said that he would seek to enhance military-to-military contacts with China and invite PLA observers to U.S. military exercises, an issue of dispute in Washington. In October 2005, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited China, the first visit by a defense secretary since William Cohen's visit in 2000. After Rumsfeld's visit, which was long sought by the PLA for the perceived full resumption of the military relationship, General Guo Boxiong, a CMC Vice Chairman and the PLA's highest ranking officer visited the United States in July 2006, the first such visit since General Zhang Wannian's visit in 1998. China's rising power with greater assertiveness and aggressiveness (particularly in maritime areas), refusal to discuss nuclear weapons, cyber threats, and repeated suspensions of visits showed limitations of the results of mil-to-mil exchanges. Also, a need arose for a review of the U.S. approach of a greater stress on cooperative contacts than the PLA's antagonistic attitude and leveraging of military contacts to influence U.S. policies. The PLA has repeatedly suspended mil-to-mil contacts while blaming U.S. "obstacles" (including U.S. reconnaissance, arms sales to Taiwan, legislated restrictions on contacts with the PLA, and the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on PRC Military Power). At a news conference on March 7, 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he did not see China as a "strategic adversary" of the United States, but "a partner in some respects" and a "competitor in other respects." Gates stressed the importance of engaging the PRC "on all facets of our relationship as a way of building mutual confidence." Nonetheless, U.S. officials expressed concern about inadequate "transparency" from the PLA, notably when it tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in January 2007. At a news conference in China on March 23, 2007, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, said the primary concern for the bilateral relationship is "miscalculation and misunderstanding based on misinformation." Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless testified to the House Armed Services Committee on June 13, 2007, that "in the absence of adequate explanation for capabilities which are growing dynamically, both in terms of pace and scope, we are put in the position of having to assume the most dangerous intent a capability offers." He noted a lack of response from the PLA to an agreement at the U.S.-PRC summit in 2006 to discuss nuclear arms. In November 2007, despite various unresolved issues, Secretary Gates visited China, and the PLA agreed to a long-sought U.S. goal of a "hotline." Later in the month, despite a number of senior U.S. visits to China (particularly by U.S. Navy Admirals and Secretary Gates) to promote the mil-to-mil relationship, the PRC denied port calls at Hong Kong for U.S. Navy minesweepers in distress and for the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk for the Thanksgiving holiday and family reunions, according to the PACOM Commander and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admirals Timothy Keating and Gary Roughead. The Pentagon protested to the PLA.