WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China has agreed to a Hong Kong port of call by the U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz despite its announced plan to curtail military-to-military ties to protest the latest U.S. arms sale plans for Taiwan, the Navy said on Thursday.
"The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has approved a USS Nimitz visit to Hong Kong in the near future," said Lieutenant Commander Billy Ray Davis, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.
China has reacted angrily to a U.S. plan announced last month to sell $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan.
In addition to scaling down security relations and curtailing dialogue, Beijing has said it would sanction U.S. firms that sell weapons to the self-ruled island that Beijing deems a breakaway province of China.
Navy Chief Petty Officer Palmer Pinckney, aboard the Blue Ridge, command ship for the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka, Japan-based 7th Fleet, said by telephone: "We have diplomatic clearance" for the visit by the nuclear-powered Nimitz, which is based in San Diego, California.
Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of proposed arms sales to Taiwan.
(Reporting by Jim Wolf, editing by Vicki Allen)
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