No General Tso for the crew of the Kitty Hawk.
The USS Kitty Hawk and its task force were supposed to spend Thanksgiving in Hong Kong, at the invitation of the Chinese. Because the Kitty Hawk is the lone carrier stationed overseas, many of the families of the sailors and Marines on board took the relatively short trip from Japan to Hong Kong to spend the holiday with their active duty love ones. But the Chinese scuttled the visit, without any apparent reason, leaving families stranded in Hong Kong, and the sailors stuck aboard their ships in the South China Sea. At FP Passport, Mike Boyer points to one possible reason for China’s bad manners–a live-fire exercise off the Chinese coast that would have “have put U.S. ships (and their prying eyes) in a position that Beijing would consider too close for comfort.” Boyer also links a piece by Tim Johnson, who speculates this may be payback for Bush’s chummy visit with the Dalai Lama. On Johnson’s blog, China Rises (bookmark it!), he also posts a transcript of a press conference with Admiral Keating, which shows the level of frustration at the Pentagon with the Chinese decision:
