Pat Dollard | Young Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon delivered a formal protest to a Chinese diplomat Wednesday over China’s refusal to permit U.S. Navy ships to enter the port of Hong Kong on two occasions last week.

“We are expressing officially our displeasure with the incident,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters. He said a Chinese military officer who is Beijing’s defense attache in Washington was called to the Pentagon to accept the protest from a Pentagon Asia policy official. Morrell called it “a formal protest, an official protest, complaint,” for refusing port entry for two U.S. Navy minesweepers and, later, for the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying battle group.

China’s foreign minister, in a meeting with President Bush today, blamed “a misunderstanding” for the refusal to allow a flotilla of U.S. warships to make a port call in Hong Kong for a Thanksgiving holiday visit.

Bush raised the issue with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi when he visited the Oval Office for talks about North Korea, Iran and other issues. The incident added an unusual twist to China-U.S. relations, strained in recent months by disputes over trade and Iran’s nuclear program.

“Foreign Minister Yang assured the president that it was a misunderstanding,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. She said she could not explain the nature of the misunderstanding.

The Kitty Hawk and members of its strike group, including a nuclear submarine, were scheduled to dock in Hong Kong for a four-day visit. At the same time hundreds of sailors’ families had flown to the city to spend the holiday with loved ones, dozens of Americans living in Hong Kong had prepared turkey dinners for those without relatives.
Hong Kong has long been a favored port of call for the U.S. military but Beijing’s approval has been required since July 1, 1997, when Britain handed the former colony back to China. Hong Kong’s Marine Department, which handles logistic arrangements for ships docking in Hong Kong’s deep-water port, said it had not received the documentation it normally would receive from other agencies clearing the arrival of foreign military ships.

Li Junhua, a senior diplomat in China’s U.N. Mission, said that before the final approval was given to the Kitty Hawk, “it took time to finalize everything.” Asked if the refusal had anything to do with the U.S. giving the Dalai Lama an award last month, Li said the Chinese government “sent its clear-cut view with regard to the visit by Dalai Lama to Washington. However, with regard to the vessel port call, I think it’s up to the government of each country to go through its formality and it’s case by case. I hope there’s no linkage with the routine port call with any kind of issues, not only for China but for any other countries.”

Morrell said the Chinese defense attache, Maj. Gen. Zhao Ning, came to the Pentagon Wednesday afternoon and met with David Sedney, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary for China issues, for about a half hour.

“Mr. Sedney expressed our deep regret and concern with China’s denial of diplomatic clearance for the two minesweepers and the Kitty Hawk,” said Morrell, adding that the general listened and “merely promised to relay the message back to Beijing.”

Navy officials have said they are most troubled by China’s refusal to let the two Navy minesweepers enter Hong Kong harbor to escape an approaching storm and receive fuel. The minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, were instead refueled at sea and returned safely to their home port in Japan.

In addition, the Chinese also refused to allow the Kitty Hawk, a U.S. aircraft carrier, to make a planned Thanksgiving port visit to Hong Kong.

The USS Kitty Hawk, which has its home port near Tokyo, was forced to return early to Japan when Chinese authorities at the last minute barred the warship and its escort vessels from entering Hong Kong harbor. Hundreds of families of sailors aboard the Kitty Hawk had flown from Japan to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Hong Kong, but had to return home after China refused the port entry.

Later Chinese officials said the Kitty Hawk could enter the port, but by then the carrier had left the area and did not return.
On Wednesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former chief of the Navy, said China’s refusal to let the minesweepers dock went against international rules.

“That’s an international rule that people who go to sea and responsible nations who are seagoing nations understand, that you always provide safe harbor, then you figure out, if you want to figure out some of the details …. China chose not to do that,” Mullen told a political science class at Yale University. “That’s perplexing to me. I don’t understand that.”

Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, called the refusal distressing and irritating but later said it should not be viewed as “calamitous.”
“It’s not, in our view, conduct that is indicative of a country that understands its obligations as a responsible nation,” he said Tuesday. He added that he hopes it does not indicate a lasting blockage of port visits.

China’s foreign minister issued a strong protest to the U.S. ambassador after the award was given to the Dalai Lama, and the Chinese government said the move gravely undermined relations between the two countries. China reviles the Dalai Lama as a Tibetan separatist.