HONG KONG — The symbolism was clear even if a bit muted. The commander of U.S. forces in Asia, Adm. Timothy Keating, came to this doorway to China last week to persuade leaders of the People's Liberation Army to revive military exchanges with the United States.

To give the Chinese a little extra nudge, the admiral had the 97,000-ton U.S. aircraft carrier USS John Stennis, among the most powerful warships afloat, anchor in Hong Kong's harbor as he met informally with senior Chinese officers in garrison here. Hong Kong, after a century of British colonial rule, was turned over to Beijing in 1997 and became nominally an autonomous region within the People's Republic of China.

In a roundtable session with news correspondents, Keating said he had reason to believe Beijing was ready to renew those exchanges. Pressed to explain why he thought so, Keating was reluctant to provide details but noted there had been "indirect but unmistakable forms of communication" through third parties, including visitors to his headquarters in Hawai'i, that the Chinese were open to negotiation.

Further, the admiral disclosed that an initiative was under way to forge an agreement intended to prevent hostile incidents between U.S. and Chinese warships at sea. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had an agreement during the Cold War that neither navy would train its guns on the other's warships or fly fighters over the other's ships. Keating said the new effort was in its earliest stages.

Sino-U.S. military exchanges, which had been expanding in fits and starts for more than a decade, were abruptly broken off by the Chinese in October after the U.S. announced it would sell $6.5 billion worth of arms to Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty. The U.S. is obliged, under the Taiwan Relations Act, to provide Taiwan with weapons to defend itself.

The impasse appeared to have been broken when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on the eve of her current trip to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China that the U.S. and China "will resume midlevel military-to-military discussions later this month." She was scheduled to be in Beijing today.

Clinton's disclosure caused mild surprise in the Pentagon and at the Pacific Command in Hawai'i, where defense officials wondered why such an announcement had not come from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates or from Adm. Keating, who is responsible for military exchanges with the Chinese. One official shrugged it off as a "rookie mistake" from an administration still getting its feet on the ground.

In any event, the admiral argued vigorously for a resumption of military dialogue with China, asserting that it would be "very much in our mutual benefit" and would lessen the chances of a confrontation degenerating into a crisis or even into armed conflict.

Keating, on a journey through Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, recalled that a Chinese officer had once suggested that the U.S. and China divide the Pacific Ocean, with China responsible for keeping the peace west of Hawai'i and the U.S. confined to waters east of Hawai'i. "I said," Keating reported, "no thanks."

Instead, the admiral asserted, the U.S. and China "should work more together." He noted that three Chinese warships had been patrolling in the Gulf of Aden against pirates who preyed on Chinese merchant vessels. He said Chinese ship captains often communicated with the commander of a U.S. naval task force in that region.

On the other hand, Keating said, the U.S. and China had a "hot line" for communication and he had used it when the U.S. was delivering relief supplies to China after a devastating earthquake. But, he said, "I don't have a phone number yet" so that he could call a Chinese officer directly.

Responding to fresh reports that China sought to build four aircraft carriers, two with conventional power and two with nuclear power, over the next quarter century, Keating was skeptical. "It's not as easy as it looks," said the naval aviator with 5,000 hours of flight time and 1,200 landings aboard aircraft carriers. "Operating an aircraft carrier is a very demanding discipline.

"It will take them a long time," he contended, "and it will be harder than they think."

Richard Halloran, formerly with The New York Times as a foreign correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington, is a freelance writer in Honolulu.