Jiang says U.S. responsible for collision
Tuesday, April 03, 2001 06:28 AM EDT
HONG KONG, Apr 03, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Chinese
President Jiang Zemin on Tuesday said the United States should bear full
responsibility for the collision between a Chinese military jet and a U.S.
surveillance plane as the diplomatic standoff between China and the United
States heated up on its third day.
"The responsibility fully lies with the American side. We have full evidence for
that," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao quoted the president as
saying. He said Jiang's comments came as he met Tuesday morning with the
visiting prime minister of Qatar, Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani.
"It is the U.S. airplane that flew against the rules, made dangerous maneuvers,
damaged our airplane. We cannot understand why the U.S. side conducts frequent
reconnaissance flights so close to China," Zhu quoted Jiang as saying.
"The United States should stop similar flights in airspace near to Chinese
coastal seas so as to prevent similar accidents from happening again," Jiang
said, according to the spokesman.
"And this time, in violation of international law and practice, the U.S. plane
bumped into our plane, invaded the Chinese territorial airspace and landed at
our airport," Jiang said during the meeting, China's official Xinhua news agency
said. U.S. diplomats waited on the island of Hainan, off China's southern coast,
on Tuesday to see the 24 crew members of a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane
that made an emergency landing there on Sunday after colliding with a Chinese
F-8 fighter.
U.S. officials in Washington were told that American diplomats waiting in Hainan
would be allowed to visit the crew Tuesday night, local time. But White House
officials said the timetable is too slow. President George W. Bush Monday
demanded "immediate access" to the crew and called for release of the plane
"without any further tampering."
In Beijing, U.S. Ambassador to China Adm. Joseph Prueher told reporters Tuesday,
"We are very pleased that we are going to see them tonight, or we expect to see
them tonight."
The crew was last heard from shortly after the plane landed at the Lingshui
military airfield in Hainan on Sunday. Crew members issued a radio dispatch
saying the plane had landed and that armed Chinese military were already making
their way on board.
Through diplomatic channels the Chinese Foreign Ministry has assured Washington
and Beijing that the crew is safe and in good health.
The crew was trained to destroy the highly sensitive equipment and classified
material aboard the aircraft in such an emergency. "If the plan called on them
to destroy classified material, you can bet that's what they were doing," a Navy
official told the Washington Post.
The Taipei Times, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that the U.S. aircraft was
attempting to collect data on China's most advanced warship -- a Russian-made
Sovremenny-class destroyer -- when it collided with the jet fighter. The Times
quotes an intelligence source as saying Taiwan detected the Navy EP-3 on radar
flying in circles at a low altitude near the destroyer.
The intelligence source said two Chinese jet fighters taking off from their base
in Guangdong Province arrived to intercept and drive away the Navy plane, which
then attempted to fly away after colliding with one of the Chinese jets.
The Navy plane is equipped with highly classified sensitive surveillance
equipment used to detect and analyze electronic signals emitted by adversary
weapons and communications systems.
A former Pentagon intelligence official told United Press International the crew
would have erased the crypto-analytic and other software before landing,
essentially wiping their memories clean to keep the information and capabilities
out of Chinese hands. Although the Chinese might have access to the hardware,
the software that runs it would be almost impossible to penetrate. The official
said the shutdown of all the software on board the aircraft would explain why
there was only brief contact with the crew on landing.
U.S. officials insist the plane has sovereign immunity, meaning it is the
territory of the United States.
"Our view is that military aircraft have sovereign immunity under international
law and practice. We made that view quite clear to the Chinese," State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
A U.S. defense official said the Pentagon believes the Chinese boarded the plane
because the last radio communication from the crew said they were being ordered
to shut down their operation, presumably from inside the cabin. But until U.S.
officials meet with the crew this information can not be confirmed, the official
said.
If the Chinese boarded the plane, Beijing could be in violation of international
law, further straining already icy relations between the United States and
China.
This incident has shaped up as Bush's first major foreign policy crisis, which
comes at a time of increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing. Relations
chilled markedly March 22, when Bush refused to give visiting Chinese Vice
Premier Qian Qichen assurances that the United States would not sell high-tech
warships to Taiwan in the annual April arms deal between Washington and Taipei.
The Bush administration considers China a strategic adversary, not a strategic
partner. The warships are equipped with the Navy's most advanced anti-missile
radar system, and could also be used to shoot down Chinese ballistic missiles.
(Mark Kukis at the White House, Eli J. Lake at the State Department and Pam Hess
at the Pentagon contributed to this report.)
By KATHERINE ARMS
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
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