Army corps of engineers to sign MOU with China

Lientenant General Thomas Bostick, commanding general and chief of engineers of The US Army Corpos of Engieers, talks to reporters at the Foreign Press Cener in Washington on Thursday. [Photo by Chen Weihua/China Daily]

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), a public engineering, design and construction management agency under the Department of Defense and known for its work with dams, canals and flood protection, is increasing its cooperation with China.

USACE has been finalizing a Memorandum of Understanding on future water collaborations with China's Ministry of Water Resources.

USACE also participates in the annual US-China Disaster Management Exchange, of which the last one was held in November in Hawaii and Washington and New York.

And a USACE group is expected to pay a visit to China later this year as a return visit of the bilateral exchange.

Lientenant General Thomas Bostick, commanding general and chief of engineers of USACE, told China Daily on Thursday that he was invited to visit China two years ago, but his scheduled did not allow him. "I am sure that I will be invited again and as we start working this next visit and I would love to go over," he said.

He said the engagement with China is not necessarily from a military-to-military relationship, although both military and civilian from the US will engage with China.

With 33,000 civilians and only 700 uniformed soldiers, USACE looks quite like a civilian organization. Its people engaging with China include both military and civilian personnel.

"So it is a military-civilian engaging with China for the purpose of better sharing ideas on water resource management areas, and that could be anything from water supply, navigation, work in ports, flood risk management. Those sorts of things are areas of mutual concern," Bostick said.

When USACE hosted a Chinese delegation attending the US-China Disaster Management Exchange last year, the Chinese were curious to learn the US response to Hurricane Sandy, which hit the US east coast in late 2012.

Not long ago, officials from China's Three Gorges Corporation also visited parts of the US Government's Tennessee Valley Authority system of locks and dams.

Bostick said he and his people are always interested in learning new techniques and also learning challenges that other nations might have, citing the fact that the US has some very old dams while the Chinese have kept building new dams.

"We're working to ensure that we reduce the risk on those dams through the best engineering that we can apply," he said.

"China is interested in that as well… And if there is a method for us to help each other, then we help," he said.

Bostick believes the purpose of such exchange would, from a strategic perspective, help the US in its engagement strategy. From a tactical operational perspective, it's for the US and China to learn from each other in water resources management.

And a lot of such exchange is arranged by the US State Department, according to Bostick.

He said he had not engaged with engineers of China's People's Liberation Army. "But as a soldier, I would love to work with the military in terms of where we can learn lessons from each other on how engineers operate in both of our countries," said Bostick, also a registered professional engineer in Virginia.

While most of USACE's job has been at home, it also executes different missions - military construction, host nation-funded construction, foreign military sales, humanitarian assistance, and disaster preparedness and response projects - in 22 countries in the Asia Pacific region, including such as South Korea, Japan, India, China and Vietnam, according to Bostick.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com