The latest U.S. envoys in this endeavor are the senior non-commissioned officers who are responsible for the day-to-day care, feeding, training and work of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen. It may sound trite, but they are the backbone of America's forces.

In the first venture of NCOs into this military diplomacy, the senior enlisted leader of the Pacific Command, Chief Master Sgt. James Roy of the Air Force, led a delegation of 12 senior NCOs to China recently and is preparing to receive a Chinese delegation in a reciprocal visit to U.S. forces in Hawai'i this fall.

Roy emphasized the reasons for the trip to China. "We did not go to help them to build capacity," he said in an interview, meaning to strengthen their armed forces. U.S. military exchanges with China have been controversial with critics, including neo-conservatives, who contend the U.S. should not help China improve its forces.

Instead, Roy said, "We went to understand them better and to have them understand us." In less diplomatic terms, that meant learning more about the capabilities of the PLA and demonstrating the ability of American NCOs who are the foremen — and women — of their services to get things done.

Sino-U.S. military relations have traveled a bumpy road for many years. The current tone appears to have been set by Adm. Dennis Blair, who led the Pacific Command in 1999. In testimony before a Congressional committee, he asserted that U.S. military leaders sought to get two points across to the Chinese:

In recent years, several U.S. secretaries of defense and top military officers have visited China and received its counterparts in Washington. Over time, a large part of the military exchange has fallen to the Pacific Command.

The former commander, Adm. William Fallon, went to China three times and the current commander, Adm. Timothy Keating, has been there twice and will most likely go again next year. Senior Chinese officers have visited the command's headquarters in Honolulu and bases on the Mainland.

In addition, exchanges of middle-grade officers, those who will lead their respective services in the next 10 or 15 years, have begun. Now the senior NCOs have been tasked to gauge the quality of Chinese NCOs and to impress the Chinese with U.S. training and experience.

The People's Liberation Army, having been an unschooled force that relied on human-wave tactics in the Korean War of 1950-53, has recently begun to develop qualified noncommissioned officers. Chinese leaders, a Pentagon report said in March, are concerned that "low education levels in the PLA negatively affect its operating capability and professionalism."

During the week the American NCO delegation was in China on its initial visit, members engaged in discussions mostly with Chinese officers, not with NCOs, and toured bases in the Nanjing military district on the central coast of China. The Chinese, Roy said, asked "very few stray questions. They had a good idea of why we were there."

Even so, the American concept of a noncommissioned officer corps puzzled the Chinese. "The Chinese do not yet understand the role of the senior NCO in the U.S. military service," Roy said. Pointing to the chevrons on his sleeve, he said: "They did not understand that a chief master sergeant, as the senior enlisted leader of the Pacific Command, is not a commander."

Altogether, Roy said, "I thought it was a very good dialogue. They invited us back, and we expect them to come here on a reciprocal visit. It needs to go both ways."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday's Focus section.