U.S. and Chinese officials signed a document Friday morning in Shanghai, China to formalize research in Chinese archives on Korean War POW/MIA matters, according to a Department of Defense news release.

Ambassador Charles A. Ray, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, signed the arrangement with Maj. Gen. Qian Li Hua, of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense.

The arrangement outlines expected cooperation between the U.S. and China in researching the archives, which may shed light on Americans who were missing in action or held as prisoners of war in camps managed by the Chinese, the news release said.

In seeking to account for the approximately 8,100 servicemen missing from the Korean War, the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office has sought access to these archives for more than a decade.

The cooperation of the Chinese people and government has led to the recovery of the remains of Americans lost in the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Korean War and World War II. This joint archival effort is expected to open more avenues of research to enable U.S. analysts to narrow their searches for the specific locations where American remains may be buried.

The signing ceremony took place in the same Shanghai hotel where President Richard Nixon and Premier Cho En-lai signed their historic communiqué in 1972.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420 or (703) 509-1905.