ET

Spy plane video raises tension ahead of meeting

By David Rennie in Beijing and Toby Harnden in Washington

THE Pentagon released new footage of the pilot Wang Wei last night, hours before a meeting in Beijing between American and Chinese officials over the spy plane stand-off.

In the video, filmed by a US EP-3 surveillance plane crew in January, Lt Cdr Wang Wei, who died in a mid-air collision that sparked the current crisis, is seen holding up a piece of paper bearing his email address. Wang's features can be clearly discerned as he points at the paper and beckons the American plane to come closer.

China is likely to see the timing of the release of the video as highly provocative and insulting, given that Wang has been proclaimed a "revolutionary hero" and a "Guardian of the Sea and Sky" whose example should be studied by all Chinese.

The release indicated that the Americans would take a tough line at the meeting on who was responsible for the April 1 collision that nearly led to the death of 24 US servicemen who were released after America apologised for the pilot's death. The crippled EP-3 remains on China's Hainan Island.

The eight-strong American delegation, made up of Pentagon officials, diplomats and military officers, arrived in Beijing yesterday for the first talks since the crisis ended last week. Before the release of the video, a State Department spokesman welcomed China's promise that the meeting in Beijing would be "straightforward" but Washington continued to demand the return of the surveillance plane.

Ari Fleischer, President Bush's spokesman, said: "It is incumbent on both sides to demonstrate their desire for it to be constructive. That would be the United States' goal going into the meeting and the President hopes and believes that will be the Chinese goal as well."

A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing gave away little on the fate of the spy plane and whatever secrets it still contains after two weeks of inspections by Chinese experts. Zhang Qiyue said: "The Chinese side will handle the aircraft in accordance with the outcome of the investigation."

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001

Answers

after America apologised for the pilot's death

Um, excuse me, but I thought we expressed sorrow for his death, and apologized for entering their airspace and landing on their soil?

did part of this story come from Chinese sources?

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001

Apology, schamology.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001