November 30, 2007 (LPAC)--China has turned down yet another request for a port call for a U.S. Navy ship. The U.S. Navy requested, back in October, that the USS Reuben James, a guided missile frigate, be allowed to visit Hong Kong over the New Years holiday, but Chinese authorities said "no." Lyndon LaRouche commented, today, that the Chinese military is responsible for the wave of port call refusals, now three in one week, or the Chinese will say that their military doing it. This squares with speculation reported by CNN, presumably from the Pentagon, that the Chinese may have been conducting military exercises that they didn't want the U.S. Navy to see. The refusal on the Reuben James was transmitted on Nov. 22, the same day the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying battle group were turned away from Hong Kong, but there is no explanation yet, as to why it wasn't publicized at the time.

Meanwhile, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a long-shot Presidential candidate, wrote a letter to President Bush on Thursday, calling on him to convene a meeting with the chairmen and ranking members of the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees, to discuss policy towards China in the aftermath of the Kitty Hawk incident. According to The Hill, Duncan claimed that this and a similar incident with two U.S. minesweepers a couple of days earlier demonstrate that "China is embarking on a new more confrontational relationship with the U.S., and we need to be prepared."

The reality is that Lyndon LaRouche has been warning the U.S. Senate since July of this year, that the Chinese were going to retaliate for the contempt being shown them by the Senate.