NYPost

U.S.: LET US FIX OUR PLANE

By BRIAN BLOMQUIST and URI DAN

April 17, 2001 -- U.S. diplomats head to Beijing tomorrow to demand China allow mechanics to repair the grounded American spy plane that's at the heart of a dispute so it can be flown home.

State Department diplomats and Pentagon officials also plan to tell the Chinese, possibly with documentary evidence, that the Chinese jet-fighter pilot caused the collision with the American EP-3E spy plane.

"You can expect some forthright conversations about those flights and about what took place," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

White House officials said the eight U.S. negotiators, led by acting Undersecretary of State Pete Virga, will ask China to ensure its jet-fighter pilots are more careful as they monitor U.S. reconnaissance missions.

The Chinese want the United States to halt reconnaissance missions off the Chinese coast, but President Bush has vowed that they'll resume although he hasn't said when. Pentagon officials could recommend the resumption of those flights later this week.

Fleischer said U.S. diplomats don't plan to link the return of the plane, sitting on Hainan island, to other issues, including China's entrance to the World Trade Organization, its bid for the 2008 Olympics, and weapons sales to Taiwan. But those issues are implicitly connected to the United States' overall relationship with China.

Chinese officials claim the U.S. propeller plane, which is larger and slower, swerved into the Chinese jet and caused the accident that led to the death of the Chinese pilot.

But the American pilot has contradicted the Chinese account. After the collision, the badly damaged American plane dived toward the South China Sea, but hero pilot Lt. Shane Osborn managed to regain control and brought the plane in for an emergency landing on Hainan island.

There, the 24-member crew was held for 11 days and interrogated until their release last week.

The U.S. plane, which is full of intelligence-gathering equipment, still hasn't been returned.

Meanwhile, photos released by the Pentagon reveal that the air-to-air missiles carried by the Chinese jet and another jet not involved in the collision were made by a state-owned Israeli company, according to an Israeli newspaper report.

A top Israeli defense source told The Post: "It's an old story, 15 years old. The U.S. knew for a long time that we sold this missile to China."

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001