SMH.au: China snubs ships' appeals
Thom Shanker in Washington
November 29, 2007
AMERICAN navy officials have criticised China's decisions to refuse access to Hong Kong for three US warships, including two seeking fuel and sheltered waters before a large storm.
Admiral Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, and Admiral Timothy Keating, the commander of US forces in the Pacific, said neither the Chinese Government nor its military had offered explanations.
Two minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, were sailing in international waters when a serious storm threatened. The two vessels, relatively small, asked for permission to enter Hong Kong's harbour for fuel and safety. The request was denied.
The admirals said China's refusal to lend assistance to the minesweepers was a worrisome repudiation of historical principles calling on all nations to assist ships in danger at sea.
"As someone who has been going to sea all my life, if there is one tenet that we observe, it's when somebody is in need, you provide - and you sort it out later," Admiral Roughead said.
The two minesweepers were refuelled by an American tanker and suffered no damage from the storm, he said. In a second incident days later, the Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier based in Japan, was already en route to Hong Kong for a Thanksgiving holiday visit when the Chinese withdrew their previous permission for the port call.
China later approved the visit, but it was too late for the Kitty Hawk to turn around and return.
Hundreds of family members of the crew had already flown to Hong Kong for the visit when the Chinese cancelled entry.
During a video news conference from Hawaii, Admiral Keating said he found the Chinese decisions perplexing and troublesome. "It is not, in our view, conduct that is indicative of a country that understands its obligations of a responsible nation," he said.
Admiral Keating stressed the importance of maintaining a military-to-military dialogue. About 50 US Navy ships visit Hong Kong each year.
Meanwhile a Chinese warship dropped anchor off Tokyo yesterday in the first port call in Japan by a Chinese naval vessel since World War II - a highly symbolic display of improving ties.
The guided missile destroyer Shenzhen will stay for four days and be opened to the public.
The New York Times, Associated Press
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