U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday assured a visiting senior Chinese military officer that his administration is committed to building an active, cooperative and comprehensive relationship with China, which requires both strong bilateral diplomatic ties and strong two-way military ties.

Obama made the remarks while meeting Xu Caihou, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, at the White House. The U.S. president pledged to try his best to promote the military-to-military ties.

For his part, Xu said that China attaches great importance to the two-way military ties and is willing to work closely with the United States to respect and take care of each other's interests and concerns, while continuously increasing strategic mutual trust, enhancing pragmatic exchange and cooperation, so as to advance the bilateral military relationship in a healthy and stable way.

During their talks, Xu said the consensus reached by the leaders of both countries on jointly developing a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship in the 21st century has brought China-U.S. relations to a new stage in their development.

He also said that China-U.S. relations now enjoy good overall momentum and that as a crucial component of the overall China-U.S. relationship, two-way military ties play an important role in enhancing strategic mutual trust and deepening their pragmatic cooperation, and will thus greatly benefit efforts to safeguard regional stability and world peace.

Xu told Obama that he had earlier reached seven agreements with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on expanding military exchanges and cooperation between the two nations, and they had in-depth exchanges of opinions on other issues of mutual concern.

He also said China is willing to strengthen cooperation with all other nations, including the United States, during the process of peaceful development, so as to jointly address the financial crisis, terrorism, climate change, energy security and non-proliferation and other common challenges, and to jointly build a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity.

The U.S. president recalled his two previous meetings with the Chinese president, during which they discussed the importance of strengthening comprehensive strategic relations and agreed on the need for the military of the two countries to expand exchanges and increase mutual trust.

Obama said he was looking forward to his visit to China in November.

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2009)