Reuters news service is reporting that China has refused permission for the USS Kitty Hawk CSG to visit Hong Kong for a long-planned Thanksgiving holiday visit, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.
The Kitty Hawk group and its crew of 8,000 U.S. airmen and sailors had been expected in Hong Kong on Wednesday, but will now spend the holiday on the South China Sea.
Hundred of relatives of crew members of the USS Kitty Hawk had flown to Hong Kong to celebrate Thanksgiving with their loved ones. Hong Kong has been a regular port of call for U.S. sailors on "R & R" (rest and recuperation) since the Vietnam War.
"At present, it appears the USS Kitty Hawk strike group will not be making a port call in Hong Kong as previously planned as a result of a last minute denial by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs," State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said.
The United States was pressing China for an explanation and to reconsider its decision, she added.
There are several possible sources of discontent that may have prompted the decision -- including U.S. plans to sell Taiwan a $940 million upgrade to its missile system and a meeting last month between President George W Bush and the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader who Beijing considers a traitor.
The Foreign Ministry in Beijing declined to make an immediate comment.
Last year, a Chinese submarine surfaced uncomfortably close to the Kitty Hawk near the Japanese island of Okinawa, an incident that highlighted the potential for friction between the two powers.
The move by Beijing coincides with "airspace controls" on Wednesday which Xinhua news agency said affected the air travel plans of 7,000 people in south and east China.
The controls were introduced for "unspecified reasons".