Beijing, Nov.17 (China Military News cited from Financial Times by Mure Dickie and Kathrin Hille) -- It is a mark of the secrecy that has long surrounded China's military establishment that the hulking defence headquarters on Beijing's main avenue is not identified by a single sign and is omitted entirely from many municipal maps.

Major General Qian Lihua, head of foreign affairs at the defence ministry

Yet as the People's Liberation Army emerges as one of the region's most potent forces, defence officials are making unprecedented efforts to present a more open and positive face to the outside world - from taking part in international peacekeeping operations to loosening curbs on media contacts.

"Is this an OK answer to your question? Am I open enough?" asks Major General Qian Lihua, head of foreign affairs at the defence ministry, during what aides say is the first interview with international reporters held on ministry premises. It is a good question. The US and Japan have regularly complained that military secrecy is fuelling regional concerns raised by China's rise.

"The lack of transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," the Pentagon said in a report to Congress this year.

Maj Gen Qian appears the perfect soldier to lead a charm offensive aimed at conquering such concerns. With fluent English honed by stints in the UK and US, he exudes bonhomie - even casually throwing his arm round the shoulders of a visitor to usher him into a grandly appointed ministry annexe in northern Beijing.

The general's willingness to invite foreign reporters into the ministry follows the recent establishment of a defence spokesman's office and a series of events in the past few years in which international media have been allowed to visit and interview PLA units.

The military is also reaching out to counterparts abroad via a network of overseas defence attachés and a growing list of formal exchanges. An increasing role in peacekeeping operations is also helping to improve the international image of the PLA - tarnished by its use by China's leaders to crush democracy protests in 1989.

China has nearly 2,000 personnel, from engineering, transport and medical units, engaged in nine international peacekeeping operations, says Maj Gen Qian, adding that it hopes to start sending combat troops "soon".

Such operations serve diplomatic goals - with Beijing arguing its dispatch of engineering troops to Sudan demonstrates the positive role it plays in that war-torn nation - as well as giving soldiers valuable overseas and logistical experience. They also offer Maj Gen Qian ammunition to argue against US and European Union curbs on arms exports imposed after the 1989 Beijing crackdown.

In the past few years, the US and some EU nations have called on Beijing to commit units with heavy equipment, such as armoured helicopters, to peacekeeping missions - a hefty request, he says, given the difficulty that China's "backward" defence industry has in producing such goods.

"US and EU countries on the one hand ask us to send more troops to peacekeeping operations overseas, while on the other, they still have such arms sales embargoes on China," he says. "I think that is quite unreasonable."

The PLA's embrace of openness will win over sceptics only if it leads to genuine transparency on issues such as military spending and such diplomatically sensitive operations as the 2007 shooting down of an obsolete weather satellite.

Those who view China as a source of potential instability may not be reassured by Maj Gen Qian's paving of the rhetorical ground for his country to build an aircraft carrier or his insistence that the greatest threat to national security is separatism in Taiwan.

He is quick to speak of the potential for "resolute" action against any Taiwan independence move, and robust in his insistence that the US must drop military support for the island.