The USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group's visit to Hong Kong has nothing to do with the cross-strait situation, and is merely to allow the group's sailors to spend their Christmas vacation in the harbor city, a US navy commander said yesterday.
China's Xinhua News Agency yesterday reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group arrived in the port of Hong Kong yesterday.
PHOTO: AP
The group's plan to stay in Hong Kong for three or four days is simply to give sailors a chance to visit the city, as many of the US service members have never visited the former British colony.
Also, Hong Kong is one of the best harbors in the Pacific, Rear Admiral Doug Crowder, chief commander of the group, was quoted by the Chinese agencies as saying.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Asked which harbor is the group's next destination, Crowder declined to comment based on security concerns.
According to the aircraft carrier's spokesman, the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group, including the aircraft carrier itself, as well as three escort ships, will stay in Hong Kong for three to four days.
WEATHER
Local weather conditions will be the deciding factor for when the four vessels decide to leave.
The battle group has a total of 6,500 sailors and it was the first time for most of them to visit Hong Kong.
The USS Abraham Lincoln is US' fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
The Abraham Lincoln's keel was laid on Nov. 3, 1984 in Newport News, Virginia. Four years later the ship was christened and began a series of performance trials leading up to commissioning in Norfolk, Virginia on Nov. 11, 1989.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS