China's defense minister and the U.S. Navy secretary on Tuesday discussed security at sea and Washington's moves to bolster its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, which are viewed by Beijing as a deeply unwelcome containment policy.

The visit by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus comes just days after China began landing planes on its newly commissioned aircraft carrier, displaying rapid progress toward deploying the ultimate symbol of naval power.

China's Defense Ministry said Mabus met with minister Liang Guanglie as part of a four-day visit, but gave no other details apart from their agenda. The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to requests for information.

Beijing has criticized the U.S. moves in the Pacific as part of a campaign to encircle and contain China, despite Washington's claims that it is merely shifting its focus back to the region after winding-down the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those steps include dispatching up to 2,500 U.S. Marines to rotate through a joint military training hub in northern Australia and the deployment of a new type of close-to-shore combat ship to Singapore.

China, for its part, has unnerved its neighbors with its moves to assert its claims in the South China Sea and off its east coast. Recent months have seen a standoff with the Philippines over a disputed shoal and frequent confrontations with the Japanese Coast Guard around islands claimed by both sides.

Along with acquiring an aircraft carrier, sophisticated fighter jets and other modern hardware, China has stepped-up training among the 2.3-million-member People's Liberation Army. State media on Tuesday repeatedly showed footage of ground exercises in the Nanjing Military District that faces Taiwan, the U.S.-allied island democracy that split with China during a civil war decades ago and which Beijing threatens to bring under its control by force if it has to.

Despite sometimes bellicose attitudes on both sides, there is also a growing push for greater contact and communication to avoid misunderstandings and build trust. Officers from the sides are meeting in China this week for exchanges on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations that will include a simulated coordinated response to an earthquake in a third country.