The top US military commander in the Pacific said on Thursday he was "perplexed and concerned" by China's last-minute decision to deny a US aircraft carrier entry to Hong Kong for a previously scheduled port visit.
The USS Kitty Hawk and its escort ships were due to dock in Hong Kong for a four-day visit on Wednesday until they were refused access. Hundreds of family members who had flown to Hong Kong to spend Thanksgiving with their sailors were stranded by the move.
"It's hard to put any kind of positive spin on this," Admiral Timothy Keating told the media in a telephone interview from his airplane on his way home from visiting US and coalition troops in Iraq.
China later reversed its decision and said the ships could enter on humanitarian grounds, but the notice came while the vessels were already on their way back to their home ports. The vessels chose not to turn around.
It was the second time in a week China refused to let US Navy ships into the port.
Keating said two US mine-sweepers seeking to refuel and looking for shelter from bad weather in the South China Sea had asked for permission to enter Hong Kong three or four days before the Kitty Hawk incident. But these ships also were denied, he said.
The developments come as the US military has been trying to increase personal ties with the Chinese military to prevent misunderstandings and the potential for miscalculation.
Chinese warships visited US naval bases in Pearl Harbor and San Diego last year, and the two navies have since held basic exercises together.
High-level commanders have traveled back and forth between the two Pacific powers, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Beijing earlier this month.
Keating, who heads the US Pacific Command from its Hawaii headquarters, said he was unaware of any reason for China's decision.
"It's my understanding the Chinese just said `no,'" he said.
China has in the past barred US Navy ships from Hong Kong when bilateral relations have been strained.
In recent weeks, the two sides have had disagreements over trade, Iran's nuclear program and the US Congress awarding a medal to the Dalai Lama.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS