China bars US aircraft carrier from entering Hong Kong
China has denied a request for a US carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis to visit to Hong Kong, the US Defense Department said on Friday, amid heightened tensions over China's territorial claims in the South China Sea.
A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Bill Urban, said a US warship, the USS Blue Ridge, was currently in Hong Kong on a port visit and the US expected that to continue.
Urban said the request for the Hong Kong visit by the carrier and its accompanying vessels, which have been patrolling the South China Sea, was recently denied, despite a "long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong."
A US Navy official, who did not want to be identified, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry's commissioner in Hong Kong conveyed Beijing's denial of visit, saying it was "not convenient" at this time.
China's Foreign Ministry, in a statement sent to Reuters yesterday, did not directly provide a reason for the denial.
The nuclear-powered Stennis has been conducting patrols in the South China Sea, which China claims most of and where Beijing has sparked US and regional concerns by building artificial islands to bolster its claims.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the Stennis while it transited the South China Sea on April 15 to underscore US concerns about the need to maintain freedom of navigation in the face of Chinese moves.
While aboard the Stennis, Carter dismissed China's characterization of a more robust US military presence in the region as being the cause of heightened tensions. Washington has in turn accused China of militarizing its outposts in the South China Sea by building airstrips and other facilities.
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