Posted on 03/07/2004 7:29:32 AM PST by Dr. Marten
Joining the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk for the port call are two ships from the strike group, the USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) and USS Cushing (DD 985), and the embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5. Rear Adm. James D. Kelly, commander of the Carrier Group 5, also the embarked strike group commander, said at a news briefing that it's very pleasant for the strike group, as well as the sailors, to visit Hong Kong, for many will have chance sightseeing the beautiful city and buying goods. Kelly said the strike group's visit here now is "absolutely not coincident with" the timing of the approaching poll in Taiwan. The visit "has nothing to do with the election" there, he noted. The commander did not tell how many days the strike group will stay, but normally the military ships dock in for two to six days. |
Of course it is not coincidental. The arrival of our carrier battlegroups are never coincidental. Nor was their arrival coincidental in 1996 when we sent to of them in response to China test firing missiles over Taiwan during their presidential elections.
Take heed China!
It is easier just to go directly to Wal-Mart.
She's been around a long time, you're right.
What I want to know is, how did they handle the Chinese requirement that the Chinese red rag fly above our colors during port visits? Hanoi's thugs have that law, too. It's also a violation of Navy regs.
I'd boycott Chinese ports before I displayed Old Glory trailing from a low staff below their bloodthirsty rag. That goes for the Canal Zone, too, where Chinese companies have taken over administering the canal and Chinese nationals are being imported by the shipload.
We're going to have issues down the road with these people, and I don't want to see anyone on our side yielding to Chinese one-upmanship, which is 5,000 years old and seems never to stop.
I've never been to China, but I've been to Hong Kong since the turnover and we didn't fly a PRC flag. I saw pictures of USS Vandegrift pulling into Vietnam last year. They had the Vietnamese flag on the signal yardarms and the U.S. ensign at the gaff. Even if they kept up the Vietnamese flag after they moored and shifted the ensign aft to the flagstaff, the U.S. ensign was at the place of honor. No flags (except for the church pennets) ever fly above the ensign on the same halyard. That's what the regs prohibit.
I was reminded of it again recently on seeing some photos of the VVAW demonstrating in front of the Pentagon and displaying the red-and-blue Viet Cong flag on U.S. soil. I'd have had them rounded up and prosecuted on Midway for high treason -- and then shot them all, and buried them at sea among the sunken hulks of the Imperial Japanese Navy. But then, I'm so unreasonable......
Thanks for the info.
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