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China raises new obstacle to spy plane crew deal

By David Wastell, Washington, and Damien McElroy, in Haikou, Hainan Island

CHINA last night threw up a fresh obstacle to a deal aimed at freeing the 24 American aircrew held on Hainan Island, by reissuing a demand for an apology and making clear that it expected America to cut surveillance flights over the South China Sea.

As US diplomats waited for a promised third meeting with the crew, detained near the military airfield where their spyplane crash-landed last weekend after colliding with a Chinese fighter, the country's top foreign policy official, Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, sent a letter to Washington declaring that an apology from President George W. Bush remained of the "utmost importance" to China.

At the same time, Chinese officials told American diplomats that they want electronic reconnaissance flights close to their coastal waters, which were stepped up to four or five flights a week from last summer, to be curtailed. China warned last May that the flights were coming "too close to the coast, and might cause trouble", according to a Chinese officer quoted in the Washington Post.

Neither option would be acceptable to Mr Bush, who has strong public backing for the firm line that he has taken in his first foreign policy challenge since entering the White House less than three months ago. Some Republicans are privately expressing unease at the softly-softly approach of the past few days, and an editorial entitled "A National Humiliation", planned for a forthcoming edition of the Weekly Standard - a touchstone for many conservatives, describes the crew as held "hostage" and accuses Mr Bush of "weakness" in his dealings with the Chinese.

American officials warned that they expected more "ups and downs" before the dispute was resolved, but remained optimistic that a solution was within reach. However, the new Chinese move appeared to dash hopes that an exchange of drafts of a proposed joint letter between America and China, being studied by President Bush and the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, would end the stand-off this weekend.

The letter, to be signed by Adml Joseph Prueher, America's ambassador to Beijing, and a senior Chinese official, would contain face-saving expressions of regret at the collision, in which a Chinese fighter pilot died, but avoid any admission of blame. It would also refer detailed examination of the accident and issues arising from it - including future surveillance flights - to a joint military and maritime commission set up by the two countries three years ago.

Henry Kissinger, a former secretary of state, has privately warned the Chinese leadership that it must release the crew by today or face a damaging and enduring reaction from the American public, according to diplomatic sources. A poll for the Washington Post found opinion hardening, with 74 per cent saying that the Bush administration should restrict trade with China to force the return of the plane and its crew.

Last night's letter from the Chinese vice-premier to General Colin Powell, America's Secretary of State, said: "Up to now, the American attitude is still unacceptable to the Chinese side, and the Chinese people are extremely dissatisfied with this."

Communist officials also delivered a letter to the US embassy in Beijing from Ruan Guoqing, the wife of the missing Chinese fighter pilot, Wang Wei. Apparently written as she shed tears in her hospital bed, the letter called on President Bush to take responsibility for the incident. It said: "You are too cowardly to voice an apology and have been trying to shirk your responsibility repeatedly and defame my husband groundlessly."

China maintains that the EP-3, which carried the latest American eaves-dropping equipment, "suddenly swerved" during a routine flight along its coast last Sunday, knocking the Chinese fighter out of the sky. Washington contests this, arguing that the Chinese pilot came too close to the American plane.

In the Hainan capital, Haikou, where the crew is being held in a People's Liberation Army guesthouse, American diplomats spent most of the day in a hotel waiting for a telephone call from Chinese officials with a time and a place for a third meeting with the aircrew.

In the wait for a breakthrough on the release of the crew, the Lockheed EP-3 surveillance aircraft spent a seventh day at a closed military airbase in the sweltering heat of the garrison island in the South China Sea, where it has been all but gutted by Chinese security experts.

Carefully controlled attempts to raise public anger against America continued yesterday, amid stalling by Beijing as it attempts to wring concessions on curtailing future surveillance flights. China also wants assurances from the Bush administration that it will not sell sophisticated arms to Taiwan, the province that it regards as renegade.

Chinese state television for the first time carried reports that President Bush had expressed regret for the loss of the Chinese fighter pilot, who is missing, feared dead. Many Chinese newspapers showed pictures of President Bush delivering Thursday's statement of regret with his head bowed, conveying a message of contrition to the Chinese.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2001

Answers

Well, it should be pretty clear by now that there will be no simple return of the crew or the airplane. In fact the airplane may not even be flyable by the time the Chinese get done taking it all apart. It may end up looking like some cars do after being pulled off one of the expressways around New York City. Within hours, no wheels, no engine and transmission, no radio/tape/CD deck. Just a sort of metal hulk sitting there forlornly.

Bush is getting his education in Chinese "trading" practice. Here's what is now being requested/demanded for the return of the plane/crew, or soon will be, in my opinion:

1. *Big* public apology to the Chinese people for killing one of their finest, most courageous, pilots and destroying his fighter plane. (I suppose there will be some reimbursements also tacked on for the family of the pilot and of course for replacement of the fighter.)

2. Promise to stop all further surveillance flights along their coastal waters, and never engage in such flights again. (I suppose they might keep the plane itself for "security" for a period of at least 6 months to ensure our promise is being kept)

3. Promise to stop all further sales of any and all military type equipment to Taiwan and then publicly agree that Taiwan actually is a part of mainland China itself.

4. Remove all our present military presence from their area immediately, including bases, ships, and aircraft.

5. ........they're working on 5 thru 10 as we ponder 1 thru 4.

There is *not* going to be any easy way out here. Only getting tough will work, and that should start with stopping all trade with them immediately and freezing their assets here, same as we did with Iran.

Let's keep in mind that they hold a huge amount of our US dollars as a result of our massive trade imbalance with them. Some of that is invested in our stock market and various bonds here. All that is capable of being sold off by them and causing us a lot of economic pain. Also, if they start dumping dollars on the world financial markets, it will cause big problems for our exchange rates and the value of the dollar as world reserve currency.

But, we knew we were getting into such a bind with them a long time ago, and I sure hope we are not just going to start bowing to them over the plane incident. Sure do wish that pilot of ours had made a different decision about where to put that plane down.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2001

I'm certainly no expert in currency markets etc. But if the market distortions are as severe as I have been reading, wouln't this provide a great excuse to divert the blame for a market crash to some external tangible event rather than to those who have perpetuated, profited from, and mismanaged the irrational exuberance of the last coupla years? Draw attention away from the ME as well.

This may be very skeptical but gotta ask...

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2001

Some various thoughts....

I don't think that the pilot had much of a choice of where he landed, if you believe some of the things you read. Who knows? We won't until they are back on US soil, and then we'll only know that the government allows them to tell us.

Should we bow down to them? HELL no! I'm biased here as my husband is in the Navy. If we bow down to them, we'll be known the world over as weak. Do you want this country to appear weak to everyone else? Even if we are, you never show your faults.

Trade... the only way to cut down on the trade is to stop buying anything that is made there. The huge corporations won't stop the imports until their stocks start stacking up. It is up to us little people to make up their minds for them.

I've said all along, that I thought that plane should have been destroyed as soon as our people were off of it. I'm sticking to that. We should have either bombed it, or let the SEALS take care of it.

Today, from what I gather, was the first meeting between that crew and our people that wasn't attended by their 'hosts'. We should have provided these men and women with small tracking devices that we would at least get a fix on where they are being held. Go in and get them.

Don't just sit with the thumbs up the butt, DO SOMETHING! Talk talk talk... what will that get us? Nothing but our service men and women exposed to who knows what kinds of interrigations.

I looked at everything I purchased today. If what I wanted to buy said "Made in China", I put it back on the shelf. I think that I'll continue with this, even after our service men/women are returned. China has said that they are the enemy of America, why should I support their efforts to bring us down?

Just the rants and ravings of a patriotic American, that thinks she has had a wee much to drink tonight!

Proud wife of a Navy man flying unprotected somewhere over the Pacific.

Sheeple

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2001

smarshall,

You might be exactly right in what you are thinking. If there is any way to blame the coming stock market and economic troubles on someone else, the powers-that-be will jump to it. China could be the perfect patsy for that blame, since it seems they are going to force an international incident, and some trade restrictions, into the mix. From what I am seeing, the hard liner Chinese military hawks are looking at what concessions they think they can wring out of us with the plane and crew being held there. Those hard liners are not likely to be business savvy enough to foresee the economic bind they are going to put themselves in and what a marvelous scapegoat they offer. This has all the ingredients for an episode of Military Blunders on the History Channel, both by us and by the Chinese.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2001

It's just big boys pissin on each others shoes. Should be over by next week by my guess.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

Gordon, I agree, it seems that with all the calls from the Chinese military for a complete investigation of the plane and the people responsible for the plane, that they are laying the ground work to drag this out until the deadline for decisions on weapons sales to Taiwan and use the hostages as leverage. Congress is already getting impatient and moving toward economic sanctions. If they apply sanctions it will have a negative and possibly catalytic impact towards the inevitable on the markets. This is going to get much worse before it gets better.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

Pity we can't send that stupid sub comander to 'bump' into their new ship, the one we were monitoring when this happened. Sure would be a shame if that ship sank, huh?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

Barefoot, I was at statfor.com the other reading about the subs we were monitoring. I was wondering if we didn't stumble on some good info which forced the chinese into this, possibly knowing that we would destroy the data or lose it to the bottom of the sea.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

I'm with Sheeple. Hell will freeze before I buy anything made by those bastards. (A lot of what they send us is made by prison labor, incidentally.)

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

I've held the unpopular opinion of refraining from buying "made in China" goods for a long time.

Yes, it's hard to do. No, I'm not always successful, but I make it a point to really investigate other choices. Yes, it's usually more expensive to "buy American".

I just have a real problem buying anything that my enemy has produced. Why bolster their economy and make them stronger while weakening ours in the process?

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001