U.S. and Hong Kong (2008)

United States Pacific Command

Admiral Timothy J. Keating, U.S. Navy
Commander, U.S. Pacific Command

Press Roundtable, Hong Kong

January 17, 2008

Admiral Keating: Thank you very much and good morning to everyone. It's good to see you and we're grateful for your joining us here this morning.

This is my second visit to China as the Pacific Command Commander. We were here on the Mainland in May. We just concluded three days of high-level discussions with our colleagues in the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. We visited Shanghai and Guangzhou as well.

I can't count how many times I've been to Hong Kong. I came here first in about 1970 as a midshipman and have been back many times. My wife and I, this is our favorite city.

We are grateful for the opportunities that we enjoy here today. For the Consul General and his staff and leaders in Hong Kong, we want to make sure we do our best to get our message across, that we're here in the spirit of friendship. We want to not just sustain but enhance the trust and the friendship that we already share with Hong Kong and with the People's Republic of China, and we want to answer any of the questions you may have about our visit to China or our visit here to Hong Kong.

With me on my left is Chief Master Sergeant Jim Roy who is the senior enlisted leader for the hundreds of thousands of non-commissioned officers in our United States Pacific Command. Between the two of us, we'd be happy to take your questions.

Question: Admiral, Tom Mitchell with the Financial Times.

Admiral Keating: Hi, Tom.

Question: There seems to be a very clear pattern that has been established. In times of crisis your channels of communication, such as they are, with the Chinese military and the Chinese government don't work very well. It happened in Belgrade in '98; Hainan in 2001; and now the Kitty Hawk. What reasons are there to really expect this is going to change? Or do you have to accept that when you need to talk to China you're not going to be able to?

Admiral Keating: It's a great question, and I don't think we need to accept the historical pattern, if you will, which I think you have described accurately, Tom.

A singularly important reason for my visit to Beijing this past week was to see appropriate level officials for the second, and in one particular case, the third time, so as to develop the trust, the understanding, the look them in the eye, and to get a phone number, if you will, so that if something comes up that requires some background, some explanation, or is of a time- critical nature, or all the above, I can make a phone call and have someone on the other end take the phone call.

I don't know for a fact that that will happen, but I am much more confident today than I was prior to my first visit in May that the procedures I've just described will be executable.

Question: Did they give you a phone number, their mobile, perhaps? [Laughter].

Admiral Keating: I'm confident that I can get ahold of some guys who would understand my concern if I needed to.

Question: I was wondering whether during your stay in Beijing [inaudible] nothing in the case [inaudible] against [inaudible]? And second question, in that case, what was your answer? Second question, since the Taiwan Strait is an international waterway, is it justified to say that an aggression there would be an aggression against the international community?

Admiral Keating: The second question, the Taiwan Strait?

Question: The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway.

Admiral Keating: Right.

Question: So is it justified to say that an aggression there would be an aggression against the international community?

Admiral Keating: The first question, Taiwan did come up. A couple of times in a couple of conversations. The Chinese leaders made their country's and their personal position clear to me. It was before we met. There were no surprises. And I think, I believe we provided satisfactory answers as to the United States' position on Taiwan. It is a well known position. It is an unrelenting position. It has been the same position since 1979. And so we didn't enter into protracted discussions on either side. We expressed our mutual concern for peace and stability throughout the region. I emphasized our careful attention to any elements that we, the Pacific Command, might view as destabilizing, and our intention to address those should they develop. Those options would be, of course, left up to us.

I would say writ large that our discussions on Taiwan were less fractious, less heated, and more amiable than they were during my first visit. There was a mutual understanding of the broad issues and acceptance of each country's expressed position. And I emphasized again that our position from the United States, our policy has not changed since 1979.

On the issue of the Strait of Taiwan, it was also brought up in our media opportunity in the embassy as to how we, the United States Pacific Command, viewed passage through the Taiwan Strait. My answer then, my answer then, is it's an international body of water and if we choose to use it, we will. We don't do so to inflame passions -- and that goes on both sides of the Strait. If operational matters recommend transit of the Taiwan Strait, we will transit the Taiwan Strait. The same as the Strait of Malacca, the same as the Sulu Sea. It's an international body of water and if we want to go through there we're going to go through there.

Question: Eli Furnoy, CNN.

Admiral Keating: Hi, Eli.

Question: Hi.

On the issue of the Strait of Taiwan, did China expressly say to you that they consider passage through the Strait of Taiwan provocative or that it is an issue?

Admiral Keating: No to both, Eli. It did not come up in my discussion with Chinese military authorities or in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was a question asked at the press conference. I expressed myself then as I just did now. Nor did any Chinese official indicate their perception that transit by U.S. warships was provocative.

Question: If I could just follow up, is there anything more to the events of November of last year? There was a report out last night in the China Times of Taiwan that Chinese vessels shadowed the Kitty Hawk group through the Straits of Taiwan, that there was some sort of confrontation. Is there anything to that?

Admiral Keating: I've got nothing for you on that. Now that's kind of a coy answer. We have not been, I haven't been in headquarters, we've been out here. When we saw that report I was surprised. We went back and checked with our headquarters and to the best of my ability to tell you today, there is no foundation to that report. And I am certainly unaware as the Pacific Commander of that activity that you just described.

Question: Ami from Oriental Daily Hong Kong.

Admiral Keating: Good morning.

Question: I want to ask, Kitty Hawk will be replaced by the nuclear powered George Washington this year. Is it a signal that the U.S. military is prepared for the presidential election of Taiwan [inaudible -- the sensitive type?]?

Admiral Keating: I'm not sure I understand your question. Is there a linkage between the George Washington and the Taiwan election?

Question: Because the Kitty Hawk is a conventional and aircraft, but the George Washington is nuclear powered.

Admiral Keating: Correct.

Question: Is it a signal that the U.S. wants to improve the Pacific military force to prepare for the sensitive time of Taiwan's election?

Admiral Keating: Partially. It is true that the United States military wants to improve its posture and position throughout the Pacific, and a significant step in that improvement is replacing the USS Kitty Hawk, the oldest ship in the United States Navy, as it happens conventionally powered, with the United States ship George Washington, as it happens a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. But any linkage, there is no linkage between the arrival of George Washington and the Taiwan elections.

Question: My name is Yoshioka from Japanese Television NHK. Good morning.

Admiral Keating: Good morning.

Question: Can I ask a question about the Kitty Hawk visiting Hong Kong last time, which was rejected by the Chinese officials. Has it been solved during the time you had talk with Beijing?

And also, not only the Kitty Hawk, we have heard some stories about not only Kitty Hawk but some of the other ships like minesweepers which have been rejected also. Can I have some comment on that?

Admiral Keating: Sure. The denial of the Kitty Hawk port visit request was a topic of conversation in Beijing. We didn't spend a lot of time on it. I repeated my statements made in the immediate aftermath of Kitty Hawk's denial, that we were disappointed, that we thought this an example of behavior that was inappropriate by a major nation. And as a little bit of background, my last visit to Hong Kong before today was on the USS Kitty Hawk. I was a battle group commander and we came on Kitty Hawk here to Hong Kong. It's the crown jewel for American service men and service women and their families. So we are very interested in providing to our service members the opportunity to visit Hong Kong. I made that point clear to our Chinese hosts. I expressed our desire, our firm hope that future requests would be favorably decided, and we received favorable indications that our request would be given appropriate consideration.

That's kind of a tortured way of saying our Chinese host didn't say no to the pending request. I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. I'd bet that our request will be approved. I don't have any inside information, however.

As to the, actually the more important issue in our view at Pacific Command, the request by the USS Patriot and USS Guardian, two small ships. They're minesweepers, as you correctly described them. This was earlier in November. They were running low on fuel and the weather was really lousy out in the South China Sea, and they tried to come into Hong Kong to seek safe harbor.

This is a different area of concern for us. It is a longstanding custom that mariners will provide safe harbor to mariners in time of need. So the Chinese refusal to allow those two ships to enter is a matter of serious concern for us. I am, again, optimistic that as we express our concerns over that particular aspect of that particular request that the Chinese have a better understanding now and I think will regard our situations in a different light in the future.

Question: In November, a military exercise [inaudible] Chinese. And Vietnamese [inaudible] in the Chinese operation. You have information [inaudible] the entire exercise.

Admiral Keating: We spent some time in discussions with our Chinese hosts on our desire to operate more frequently in exercises of increasing sophistication and technological requirements. An example would be the Chinese exercise you described. And we encouraged them to consider multilateral exercises and not just bilateral exercises. We think there is significant merit in achieving our goal of understanding and developing trust if more nations are involved, and maritime exercises are a good way to do this, in the course of 2008, 2009, and the years beyond.

We did have reasonable insight into the exercise being conducted. It did not in any way affect our request for port visits or our operations throughout the South China Sea. We give them -- I'm sorry?

Question: [Inaudible].

Admiral Keating: Their exercise? There were parts of it that were interesting to us but it wasn't terribly unusual. And we were confident that we had a good appreciation for the tactics and techniques and procedures that they were using.

Though it is important as we talk with our Chinese colleagues, you'll hear us emphasize transparency. Our desire, our U.S. desire, the coalition's desire, our allies' and partners' desire for greater transparency.

If there is insufficient transparency then the question of intent arises. What are they doing and why? That is separate and distinct from appropriately classified military operations and capabilities. But intention is an important part of military to military understanding. And if there is insufficient expression of intention, we as military officers have no choice but to assume a range of options. That can create misunderstanding, which can lead to confusion, which can lead to crisis, which can lead to conflict. And we do not want that. So we want to work backwards so as to minimize misunderstanding, and in our view the best way to do that is by a better expression and understanding of intention.

Question: Cassie Biggs, AP News.

Admiral Keating: Cassie, good morning.

Question: Good morning. I'm not sure if I understand, but when the Kitty Hawk arrived did it actually have permission from China or Hong Kong for the port visit?

Admiral Keating: It's my understanding it did not. It got close. The captain of the ship and the battle commander realized they didn't have permission so they turned around and started back home. The decision was turned around, as you probably know, the decision was reversed, but they had already gotten pretty far down the path to go back home and chose to continue back to Yokosuka.

Question: Is that general practice then, for the ship to leave its port and arrive at another port without actually having permission?

Admiral Keating: We do it all the time. It never got to Hong Kong. It was in the South China Sea. I don't know precisely where. That's really not so important.

They were preparing to come in, families had arrived in Hong Kong. Permission was denied, the ship turned around. It never dropped anchor.

Question: It never got permission beforehand, before you arrived? In any other situation --

Admiral Keating: Yes, ma'am. We do. Frequently we will have permission further in advance than this last minute … we've either got to keep going but we don't have permission, so we have to stop, and we just didn't get it, didn't get it, so we have to turn around and go back. We frequently have permission well in advance of our arrival. That's how we would prefer to do business.

Question: Is this going to change after what happened to Kitty Hawk?

Admiral Keating: It's up to China. I emphasized our desire to have -- The PRC officials will say there is a set, and we understand, there are procedures, there is a protocol, there is a process. We understand that process. We've done it that way, as I say, I was here -- We did it in 2000 and all ship visits before. We understand the process. We observed our side of the process and we will continue to do so.

Voice: Thank you all very much.

Question: But will you be giving more advance notification --

Admiral Keating: We will comply precisely with the requirements of the People's Republic of China for port visit requests, as we have in the past. We'll continue to do that.

Voice: Thank you all very much for coming. The Admiral has to move on.

Admiral Keating: Thanks everybody.

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