HONG KONG, March 26 (AFP) - China has disallowed a routine port call in Hong Kong for an American naval vessel, a spokeswoman for the US consulate said Tuesday. 
	
	
 "The Chinese government denied a requested visit by the USS Curtis Wilbur, a destroyer, to visit Hong Kong from April 5 to 9," she said adding, "this would have been a routine port call." 
	
	
 "No reason was given for the disapproval," the spokeswoman added. 
	
	
 The bar on the USS Curtis Wilbur with some 346 crew is seen as reflecting Beijing's anger over Washington's decision to allow Taiwanese Defense Minister Tang Yao-ming to visit Florida for a military conference this month. 
	
	
 Beijing has twice summoned the US ambassador for dressings down over the issue, while a state-controlled newspaper reported last week that China was preparing to cancel naval exchanges with the United States in retaliation. 
	
	
 The last time such a request was turned down was in May last year following the collision of a US spy plane with a Chinese fighter jet in international air space over the South China Sea on April 1, 2001. 
	
	
 However, US naval visits to Hong Kong resumed in July. 
	
	
 There were two other similar episodes of permission being denied before that since the 1997 handover of the former British colony to China. 
	
	
 One of them was after the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was bombed, killing three people, in the US-led NATO air campaign three years ago. 
	
	
 When Hong Kong was under British rule, the US navy made up to 65 port calls a year and Beijing had agreed the stopovers would continue after the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty.