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China: Snub was not a misunderstanding

China’s last-minute cancellation of a Navy visit to Hong Kong was not the result of a misunderstanding, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday, adding that ties had been “disturbed and harmed” by Congress’ honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

Spokesman Liu Jianchao denounced an earlier report from Washington that said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told President Bush the incident was a misunderstanding.

“The report is not in line with the facts,” Liu said at a regular news briefing.

He refused to elaborate, but his negative characterization of U.S.-China relations appeared to indicate that Beijing had canceled the visit deliberately in order to register its displeasure over U.S. actions, as it has occasionally with previous Hong Kong port calls.

The Defense Department issued a formal protest to China on Wednesday over its refusal to permit Navy ships to enter the port of Hong Kong on two occasions last week.

“We are expressing officially our displeasure with the incident,” the department’s press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

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 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 a U.S. holiday 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, adding that he hopes it does not indicate a lasting blockage of port visits.

Liu said “erroneous” actions on the part of the U.S. had “disturbed and harmed” relations.

He pointed to Congress’ awarding its highest civilian honor to the Dalai Lama last month. Though the Tibetan spiritual leader is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, Beijing demonizes the monk and claims he seeks to destroy China’s sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet.

Also hurting relations were arms sales to Taiwan, an island which China regards as a renegade province, he said.

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the official party mouthpiece People’s Daily, cited an unidentified People’s Liberation Army senior colonel, as blaming Washington’s decision to sell Taiwan an anti-missile defense system.

That “obviously sent the wrong signals” to Taiwan’s leader, Chen Shui-bian, who China abhors for his campaign to assert the self-ruling island’s independent identity, the paper quoted the colonel as saying.

“At a time when the U.S. side is seriously harming China’s interests, there is no logic under heaven by which China should then be expected to open its heart and embrace it,” the paper said in its Thursday edition.

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