Why the US Sent a C-17 to a Chinese Air Show Despite Concerns Inside the Pentagon

Why the US Sent a C-17 to a Chinese Air Show Despite Concerns Inside the Pentagon - Defense One:
The decision to send a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III to the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition at the Zhuhai Jinwan airport starting Tuesday is fraught for a number of reasons, defense and security officials told Defense One....
The reasons against sending the plane seemed to policy and security officials to have been enumerable.
The American military jet will be participating in the air show with just two other foreign militaries in addition to China: the United Arab Emirates and Russia - with which the U.S. military severed ties after Russia’s annexation of Crimea this spring .
In the meantime, to some, the U.S. military’s participation in the air show is a mark of hypocrisy: Last week, the U.S. denied ally South Korea the ability to demonstrate a Korean jet at the same air show because it possesses U.S. technology and U.S. security officials said demonstrating that plane would be in violation of international agreements.
And at a cost of at least  $350,000 to attend the air show, some officials inside the U.S. government raised questions about why the C-17 jet, along with about 15 U.S. Air Force personnel, should participate at all.