the clinton legacy continues to reach out. china will be the greatest threat in this decade.
for a couple of million dollars, billy sold the US out for a bunch of thugs in china.
U.S. spy plane lands in China
after collision
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A Chinese military jet crashed yesterday after colliding
with a U.S. Navy EP-3 spy plane over international waters,
and the damaged U.S. aircraft was forced to make an
emergency landing in southern China.
The aerial incident occurred a
week after another confrontation
between a Chinese warship and a
U.S. Navy surveillance ship in the
Yellow Sea described by Navy
officials as a "threatening" Chinese
action against the ship in
international waters.
China's official Xinhua news
agency quoted a Foreign Ministry
spokesman as saying the pilot of
the downed F-8 interceptor jet
was missing in the South China
Sea.
Spokesman Zhu Bangzao also said the 24 U.S. military
personnel that were aboard the Navy four-engine plane are at
a military airfield at Lingshui on Hainan Island and have been
provided with "proper arrangements."
However, Mr. Zhu also stated China "reserves the right to
further negotiate" about their fate — suggesting the 22 Navy
sailors, one Air Force airman and a Marine are being
detained. Three female sailors are among the crew, a U.S.
government official said.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said today that a group of
U.S. diplomats had left for Hainan, but it could not say if they
would see the crew. The embassy did not say when the
diplomats were expected to arrive.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the United
States expects China to return the EP-3 crew. "That is our
expectation. That is the standard practice. We would expect
them to follow it," he said.
State Department spokeswoman Michelle King said
officials had been assured the crew was "safe and well."
The military spying incident comes at a time of growing
tension between the United States and China over Beijing's
recent arrest of two American academics, plans for new U.S.
arms sales to Taiwan, and a proposed U.S. national missile
defense opposed by the Chinese.
"It looks like there has been a turn toward the hard line in
Beijing," said one national security official. "The Chinese think
[President] Bush is trying to challenge them and they're
reacting."
U.S. Pacific Command spokesman Air Force Lt. Col.
Dewey Ford said the aerial incident occurred about 9:15 a.m.
local time Sunday (8:15 p.m. EST Saturday) as the Navy
aircraft, an electronic eavesdropping version of the P-3
Orion, was being shadowed by two Chinese F-8 jets about
50 miles southeast of Hainan Island.
One of the F-8s touched the EP-3 and caused unspecified
damage, Col. Ford said. The American plane then issued a
"mayday" distress call before making an emergency landing
on the island.
Pentagon officials said the EP-3s were monitoring a
Chinese military exercise north of the island and that the close
passes between U.S. and Chinese aircraft have been
occurring almost on a daily basis in recent weeks.
Xinhua stated in a dispatch from Beijing that the U.S.
aircraft "bumped" the Chinese fighter after it "suddenly
turned" during the encounter near Hainan.
In Honolulu, Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of the U.S.
Pacific command, said the collision is part of a pattern of
unsafe activities by the Chinese military toward U.S.
surveillance activities.
"I must tell you that the intercepts by Chinese fighters over
the past couple of months have become more aggressive to
the point that we felt they were endangering the safety of the
Chinese and American aircraft," Adm. Blair told reporters at
a news conference.
"It's not a normal practice to play bumper cars in the air,"
he said.
Adm. Blair said the military is "waiting right now for the
Chinese government to give us the kind of cooperation that is
expected of countries in situations like this."
"But as time goes on, it's increasingly worse and it's been
18 hours that we don't have a phone call yet from our crew.
We're talking about a place that has telephones."
As of last night, Adm. Blair said "we just don't know"
what happened to the 24 service members.
The admiral dismissed Chinese claims that the EP-3 was
at fault. "It's pretty obvious who bumped who," he said.
Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an
interview that the Chinese should release the crew and
aircraft.
The Chinese military appears "very unprofessional" in the
eyes of military personnel worldwide unless it explains the
incident, the senator said.
"This is a tragic military accident that could have been
avoided if Chinese pilots had respected the laws of
international airspace," Mr. Warner said.
Mr. Zhu, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the plane
"intruded into China's airspace and made an emergency
landing."
China has protested the incident to the U.S. government,
Mr. Zhu said.
Pentagon officials said the Chinese have stepped up
recent intercepts of the EP-3s, which are based at Kadena
Air Base in Japan.
The encounters have included some intercepts by F-8s
armed with air-to-air missiles and some without missiles.
"They've been flying within 20 feet of the EP-3s," said one
official.
"This was a routine surveillance mission and one of the
two F-8s bumped our aircraft," Col. Ford said.
"We are working through the embassy in Beijing and the
Chinese Embassy in Washington to make arrangements for
the return of the aircraft and crew," Col. Ford said. The crew
is safe, but none of the names of those on the EP-3 have
been released.
The EP-3 is equipped with sophisticated electronic
eavesdropping equipment and its capture by China's military
would be an intelligence boost, a defense official said.
Asked about the incident yesterday, Sen. John McCain,
Arizona Republican and a member of the Armed Services
Committee, said if the U.S. plane was in international
airspace, "I think this could have . . . some serious
repercussions."
On NBC's "Meet the Press," the Arizona senator said it is
crucial that the EP-3 "not be inspected or entered by any
Chinese" because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence
equipment aboard. "We need assurance from the Chinese" on
that, he added.
Mr. McCain said he hopes the Chinese will "help us repair
that plane and get it off that island very quickly."
At the State Department, a spokeswoman said U.S.
ambassador to China Adm. Joseph Prueher met with China's
vice foreign minister yesterday in an effort to resolve the
matter.
"We've been in touch with the Chinese since last night and
throughout the day, both in Washington and China," said
Miss King, the State Department spokeswoman.
Mr. Prueher, a retired admiral, met with the Chinese vice
foreign minister, who was not identified, last night in Beijing
"in an initial meeting to resolve the situation," she said.
Mr. Bush was notified of the incident Saturday night and
received an update report yesterday morning, a White House
spokesman said. The president is spending the weekend at
the Camp David retreat in western Maryland and was
informed of the events by National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice.
The EP-3 incident came a week after a March 24
encounter in the Yellow Sea, near the Korean Peninsula, in
which a Chinese frigate closed to within 100 yards of the
unarmed surveillance ship USS Bowditch as it conducted
ocean survey operations in the region, Navy officials said.
According to the officials, the Chinese ship, the Jianghu
III-class frigate Huangshi, "made aggressive and provocative
maneuvers" toward the survey ship.
The Chinese ship also aimed its gunfire control radar, but
not its gun, at the Bowditch and told the the ship by radio it
was not allowed to operate inside the 200-mile coastal zone
China considers its "Economic Exclusion Zone."
The ship was operating in international waters outside the
internationally recognized 12-mile territorial limit.
The Navy ship was forced to flee the area and a Chinese
reconnaissance aircraft also shadowed it, the officials said.
Intelligence officials said the ship was monitoring sea
exercises of China's Xia-class ballistic missile submarine,
which was operating in the area at the time of the incident.
Both the South China Sea and Yellow Sea encounters
came despite a 1998 U.S.-China agreement aimed at
preventing such incidents at sea. They also are raising
questions among defense officials about China's growing
military power and aggressiveness in the region. |
