WASHINGTON, Oct 8 Kyodo An eight-...

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 Kyodo

An eight-member team from the United States l at a vice admiral is in China to engage defense academy officials and visit military facilities, U management sources said Tuesday.

Vice Adm. Paul Gaffney is the highest-ranking uniformed U officer to visit China since the April 2001 collision of a U espy plane and a Chinese fighter from one side of to the other the South China Sea.

Gaffney is also the president of the National Defense University in Washington. principally of the other team members are academics at the university.

The team arrived in Beijing in succession Tuesday. They plan to visit Xian, Hangzhou and Shanghai end next Monday.

The mission will fit officials at the People's Liberation Army National Defense University in Beijing and visit military facilities in each city, the sources said.

This marks an ''exploratory'' gradation toward resuming full military-to-military exchanges between the sum of two units countries, which have been stalled since the collision incident, single in kind source said.

The dispatch go before s a meeting between U.S. President George W Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin at Bush's Texas ranch Oct 25

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo of recent origins International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group