The U.S. Pacific Command and the People's Liberation Army of China have quietly begun an exchange of military officers that is intended to reduce the chances of a miscalculation leading to hostilities between the established power in the Pacific and the rising power of East Asia.

A delegation of 20 senior Chinese officers visited the Pacific Command headquarters here and Alaska, which is within the command's area of responsibility, in November. Chinese specialists in military personnel came in January. The first American delegation is scheduled to go to China next month.

The commanding officer of the Pacific Command, Adm. William J. Fallon, said in an interview that this has been a "significant engagement."

U.S. military exchanges with China were cut off in 1989 after Chinese troops killed unknown numbers of Chinese advocates of democracy in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Those exchanges resumed under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. After George W. Bush took office in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered a review of the program.

Almost everything stopped in April of that year after a Chinese fighter clipped a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane over the South China Sea.

Since then, senior officials of the Bush administration have been skeptical of renewing the exchanges, arguing that they do not benefit the United States. Many military officers, however, have contended that exchanges would deter the Chinese, once they were informed of U.S. capabilities and intentions.

Fallon said the Chinese officers in the November exchange, who were the first operational officers representing the next generation of Chinese military leaders to come to America, had arrived with "a very high desire to learn."

A U.S. staff officer who dealt with the visiting Chinese said "they didn't know anything about America except what they learned from Hollywood." American officers said they thought they had been able to correct some of the mistaken impressions held by the Chinese, most of whom were making their first trip abroad.

The first group of 20 Chinese officers, led by Maj. Gen. Zhang Wenda, a deputy chief of the general staff, was equally divided between operational officers who lead soldiers and political commissars who make sure the troops are politically correct.

The officers were mostly brigadier generals, but their responsibilities, as brigade commanders for instance, were those of American colonels, one grade below.

Each Chinese was paired with an American, five of whom spoke Chinese, through the weeklong stay. Four Chinese spoke English.

To set an example, Fallon instructed American officers to be as open as possible, without divulging secrets, in answering Chinese questions.

U.S. military leaders, from President Bush down, have long complained that the Chinese lack "transparency" in everything from military spending to troop training.

The Chinese were briefed not only at the Pacific Command headquarters but at the Pacific Air Force and Pacific Fleet headquarters here and at the Army's command post in Alaska, a five-hour flight from Honolulu. American officers said the Chinese were surprised by the vast area for which the Pacific Command is responsible.

U.S. officers said they had been ready to respond to Chinese questions about strategy but found the Chinese not prepared to discuss issues at that level.

Instead, they focused on tactical questions such as how long it took to begin moving a brigade (18 hours) and how did a U.S. colonel control his brigade.

When the Chinese arrived, Fallon said, "they were full of propaganda" about how the U.S. was seeking to surround and contain China.

American officers who dealt with the Chinese thought they had been able to convince them that the U.S. intended China no harm, but would use military power, if necessary, to defend U.S. interests.

"We think they went away with a good balance," said one.

During their visit, the Chinese were taken to the USS Arizona Memorial, above the battleship sunk by the Japanese in the attack on Dec. 7, 1941, that brought America into World War II. The ship still rests on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, reflecting perhaps the greatest military defeat in American history.

About 200 yards downstream, however, is the battleship USS Missouri, aboard which the Japanese surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945. It reflects a distinct triumph of American arms.

U.S. officers said they thought the Chinese had gotten the message: "You do bad stuff to us," as one American officer put it, "and bad stuff happens to you."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia.