US Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith will visit China next week for talks with senior military officials, the Chinese government said.
Feith will be in China Tuesday and Wednesday for a new round in the Sino-US defense exchange, a Chinese defense ministry official told AFP.
General Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, will be among the officials he will meet, according to the defense ministry official.
Feith's visit comes on the heels of trips to China last month by Deputy US Secretary of State Richard Armitage and US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers.
The visit will take place at a sensitive time, ahead of new talks in Beijing on the festering Korean nuclear crisis, and amid growing tensions between China and Taiwan.