Warship Makes A Port Call In China

As a Chinese military band played “The Star Spangled Banner” on shore, the missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill sailed into port Wednesday on the first visit by an American warship since China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Chinese sailors lined up on the decks of nearby destroyers to welcome the ship.

The United States suspended military relations with China after its army attacked demonstrators in Beijing on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds of people. High-level talks resumed in 1993, and Defense Secretary William Perry visited China last fall.

Rear Adm. Bernard J. Smith, commander of the Navy’s Carrier Group Five, called the Bunker Hill’s port call a friendship visit and insisted there was nothing political about it.

“I would say we regard the Chinese navy as a friendly navy,” Smith said. U.S. Navy officials know little about how their Chinese counterparts operate, and Smith said they hoped to learn more during the Bunker Hill’s visit.

It was the third visit since Communist China was founded in 1949.