By Jim Mannion

WASHINGTON - Beijing's rapid military modernization, including the development of advanced weapons that threaten US forces in the Pacific, merely meets its minimum defense requirements, a top Chinese general said ahead of high-level meetings at the Pentagon.

General Xu Caihou, the highest level Chinese military official to visit in years of rocky relations between the superpowers, holds talks with Defense Secretary Robert Gates Tuesday amid US concerns over China's emergence as a potential high tech military rival.

But Xu, who is vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, set out Monday by trying to allay US suspicions, insisting that Beijing harbors no expansionist ambitions and wants collaborative international relations.

"We will never seek hegemony, military expansion or an arms race," he told an audience of foreign policy experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

But when asked about its development of cruise and ballistic missiles capable of striking US warships in the Pacific, Xu said Western concerns about China's aims were unfounded.

"It is a limited capability, and limited weapons and equipment for the minimum requirement of its national security," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Xu also defended China's double-digit annual increases in defense spending as "quite low" both in real terms and as a percentage of its gross domestic product.

Whereas US defense spending amounts to 4.8 percent of GDP, China's was only 1.4 percent, he said.

The United States has repeatedly urged China to be more transparent about its military spending, warning of a shifting balance of power in the Asia Pacific region that could arouse misunderstanding and miscalculation.

Those fears, plus US desire for greater contact with the Chinese military, were likely to figure prominently in Gates' talks with Xu, whose position in the China's political hierarchy makes him the rough equivalent of the US defense secretary.

The visit comes ahead of US President Barack Obama's first trip to China November 15-18.

Xu acknowledged western concern over its growing military might, which was put on display October 1 in a massive parade through Beijing of missiles, fighter jets, and drone aircraft on the 60th anniversary of its founding as a rag-tag guerrilla army.

The parade, he said, "was well received in international public opinion. However, I also noted some suspicion and misunderstanding in the press. Some reports were not objective enough."

Xu portrayed the Peoples Liberation Army as focused primarily on protecting China's economic development and defending against separatist and extremist challenges, which he said were clearly on the rise.

"There is still a huge gap between China and the developed world. We are now predominantly committed to peaceful development, and we will not, and could not, challenge or threaten any other country," he said.

"We believe that we should prudently handle current and future international affairs with a way of thinking that seeks accommodation instead of confrontation, and win-win instead of zero sum games," he said.

Xu said China wanted to invigorate military-to-military relations with the United States, but warned that Beijing regarded recent incursions into its 200-mile economic zone by US naval vessels as an infringement of its sovereignty.

But he said US-China relations had undergone a "smooth transition" since Obama took office in January, moving ties between the two countries to a new stage.

"The China-US relationship is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world. Exchanges and cooperation between the United States and China are important for world peace and development," he said.

"The military to military relations constitutes an important part of the overall bilateral relations," he said, adding that they benefitted regional stability.

Xu's week-long visit is the latest in an on-again, off-again effort to improve US-Chinese military ties, which have veered over the past decade between periods of crisis and brief spells of wary engagement.

Beijing cut military exchanges with Washington for months last year over a proposed 6.5-billion-dollar US arms package to Taiwan, but agreed to resume them in February.

The general will be given a sweeping look at the US military establishment in visits to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; Fort Benning in Georgia; the US Strategic Command in Nebraska; Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada; the North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, California; and the US Pacific Command in Hawaii.