US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agreed to visit Beijing later this year with the establishment of a telephone hotline linking the two countries' armed forces among items topping the agenda for talks, the Washington Times reported. The visit would be Rumsfeld's first as defense secretary, despite repeated invitations from Chinese officials. China had rejected initial plans for a military hotline between the two countries, along the lines of that set up between Moscow and Washington following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
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