The United States should ease off military deployments close to China in an act of "good faith" if high-level defense talks between the two superpowers are to resume, a retired veteran Chinese diplomat said in Singapore on Sunday.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue meeting on security, former ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai said that although the two militaries still had channels of communication, he questioned whether there was enough political will to prevent conflicts.

"Some people are talking about our ships, our planes getting too close to their ships and their planes. But the real question is, why are they coming all the way across the ocean to our doorsteps?" Cui said of U.S. naval and air force deployments close to China. "They are getting too close to our territories, to our territorial waters before anything else. This is not a good way of showing respect to others. It is certainly a disrespect of other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity."

He added: "If people have such goodwill and if people act in good faith, they could always find effective ways of communication."

U.S. deployments near China, Cui said, were "certainly disrespect of other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity and to be more specific, they always prefer unilateral sanctions."

"We have a very small number of nuclear weapons, warheads, whatsoever. So the capabilities of the two countries are very different. There's a huge gap. So how can they (the U.S.) expect us to engage in negotiation with them, when they have so many, we have so few. Are they ready to cut down their level to our level, then we can start negotiation on equal footing? Or are they asking us to raise our level to their level so that we can negotiate on equal footing?" Cui said. "So I think we have to answer these two questions first."

He said that he nonetheless remained optimistic about relations between the two countries.

"I hope things will improve in the coming months and years," he said. "As a matter of principle, we are always ready for more dialogue with others, including with the United States."

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: Former Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai delivers a speech at the Chinese Embassy in Washington on February 6, 2019. /CFP)