After the whirlwind of headlines surrounding last week's high-level talks between China and the United States, few seemed to notice this week that senior Chinese military leaders have been touring a variety of sensitive U.S. military bases.
The visits came at the invitation by the Obama administration and have prompted some to question the extent to which military relations between the two powers -- which were frozen by China amid tension over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan -- may finally be turning around.
"I don't think it's a turnaround, I think it's a continuation of where we were before China chose to freeze the military-to-military relationship," says Abraham Denmark, a World Politics Review contributor and former country director for China affairs in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.