China Says US Agrees: Forget Navy Spat
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese and American military officials have agreed to put behind them a dispute over China's refusal to allow port calls to Hong Kong by U.S. Navy warships, a Chinese official said Tuesday.
China has hinted that its denials of port calls for the USS Kitty Hawk and eight other ships were triggered by Congress' honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Chinese rival Taiwan. The rejection of the ships drew protests from the United States and led the Bush administration to call China's Washington defense attache to the Pentagon to hear complaints about the matter.
In a meeting Monday between Eric Edelman, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, and Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff for foreign affairs, the Kitty Hawk issue came up but "was not one of the major points that was discussed," said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy.
"The two sides agreed to put the issue behind them," Wang said. He described the overall mood of the regularly scheduled annual defense talks as candid and friendly.
The White House has said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called the ship rejection a "misunderstanding" during talks with President Bush but offered no apology. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later backed away from that characterization, saying that ties had been "disturbed and harmed" by "erroneous" U.S. actions.
During Monday's meeting, Wang said the Chinese side raised its concerns about U.S. ties with Taiwan, "which is regarded as one of the major obstacles affecting mutual trust and communication between the two armies."
Taiwan is a close U.S. ally, despite a lack of official ties, and the United States, committed by law to defend Taiwan, has hinted it would go to war to protect the self-governing island if nuclear-armed China were to attack.
China claims Taiwan as its own, and officials in Beijing vow to attack at any declaration of Taiwanese independence. China has stationed hundreds of missiles across the Taiwan Strait from the island.
Ma, in his talks with Edelman, urged the United States to stop official communications with Taiwan and to halt the sale of advanced weapons "so as not to send the wrong signals to the island," Wang said.
Ma also said that "sound opportunities exist for the improvement and development" of military relations between China and the United States, Wang said.
