Navy officers from the US (left) and China (right) meet in Qingdao on Monday.

We write a lot on this site on tactics and technologies for a war with China. But it’s worth remembering there’s another way. The US Navy in particular spends as much effort engaging Chinese leaders as it does deterring them. It’s a balancing act so delicate that the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, stirred controversy by saying in June that “we can’t… talk more openly” about how we might fight China because “it will unnecessarily muddy waters.” As for the ongoing attempts to clear the waters, the Navy announced last night, the commander of the US 7th Fleet and his flagship, USS Blue Ridge, are visiting the PLA Navy base at Qingdao for talks involving “more than 50 senior officers” from both sides.

It’s not an entirely equal dialogue. Vice Adm. Robert Thomas oversees naval operations from India to Siberia. His host, Rear Adm. Yuan Yubai commands only the PLAN’s North Sea Fleet (NSF), whose relatively small sector includes Korea – where the two superpowers are trying to collaborate – but not conflict zones around Taiwan or the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands. Those are primarily the responsibility of the East Sea Fleet, which has practiced invading the disputed islands, although President Xi Jinping himself leads policy on what China calls the Diaoyus.

Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, Pacific Fleet commander, with PLAN North Sea Fleet commander Rear Adm. Yuan Yubai.

Arguably that division of responsibilities makes the North Sea Fleet commander an easier partner for Americans, since he can honestly say he’s not responsible for any particular provocation. It’s also worth noting Qingdao is much closer to Beijing than the other PLA fleets’ headquarters.

Whatever the reason for choosing Qingdao, such a high-level engagement between the US and Chinese navies carries symbolic weight. So do the subjects of discussion: “Codes for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES),” which help prevent collisions and shoot-outs; “humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, search and rescue procedures, and potential opportunities for future exercises and exchanges … [as well as] counter-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden [off Somalia], efforts to remove chemical weapons in Syria, and rendering assistance” after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (when the Chinese were largely absent).

It’s hard to imagine the 50-plus officers involved had a substantive discussion on so many different topics in a single visit. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and given time, raindrops can erode a mountain. Every time Chinese officers sit down in good faith with Americans to discuss our common interests, it opens the possibility of opening minds to a path away from conflict.