From NYTimes:
April 3, 2001
U.S. Envoys Meet Plane Crew and Report Spirits Are High
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed that U.S. officials are meeting with crew members from the U.S. Navy spy plane being held by China.
AIKOU, China, Wednesday, April 4 — Two American officials met here early this morning with the detained crew of an American spy plane that collided with a Chinese jet on Sunday morning and sounded a positive note about how the crew members are being treated.
After the talks, which lasted about an hour, one of the officials, Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock, said: "My counterparts here have given me some access. I have seen the entire crew. They are all in good health and are being well taken care of. Their spirits are high and we're going to get them home as soon as possible."
The other American official who met the crew was Ted Gong, a diplomatic consul at the Guangzhou Consulate.
The two were among five American diplomatic officials who had talks for about two hours with Chinese officials at the Hainan provincial goverment compound in Haikou. After those talks, three of the American officials returned to their hotel.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, speaking to reporters in Key West, Fla., said he was pleased at the news that American diplomats in China were able to meet with the crew.
"I am encouraged by the fact that the meeting is taking place," Mr. Powell said shortly before 1 p.m. "It shouldn't have taken this long to happen, but now that it has happened, I hope this starts us on a road to a full and complete resolution of this matter. If we resolve this rather quickly, then hopefully it will not affect the overall relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China."
Asked whether the incident would affect a pending decision by the Bush administration on whether to sell high-tech weapons to Taiwan, the Secretary declined to respond directly.
Indications of a possible meeting came late Tuesday when the five American diplomats abruptly left a luxury hotel here in the tropical capital of Hainan in the company of armed Chinese military police.
General Sealock was wearing his full Army uniform when he left the hotel at about 9:40 p.m. Tusday Chinese time (9:40 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time) They were driven off in a military police convoy.
The Chinese had promised access this evening to the 24 crew members, who were detained after their plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter and had to make an emergency landing at a Chinese air base at Lingshui, on the southern coast of Hainan.
The American officials spent early part of Tuesday in Sanya, a town near the Lingshui air base, but at about 2 p.m. they were told to leave for Haikou, which is on the island's northern coast and is at least a three-hour drive away.
An hour or so later, reporters staking out the road to the air base saw two buses with darkened windows depart under police escort, fueling speculation that the crew members were being moved to the island's capital, a drive of several hours through Hainan's rugged interior.
Earlier Tuesday, the United States Ambassador to China, Adm. Joseph Prueher, said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" program that it was assumed the Chinese were examining the plane.
"There is little doubt that they have been over the airplane," the ambassador said. "It's been there. We are sure that the crew is not on the airplane and we have every reason to think that the Chinese have been all over the airplane."
CNN later quoted an unnamed Pentagon official as saying the Chinese had removed equipment from the plane. Mr. Powell, asked about that report, said he could not confirm it.
In Beijing, a Chinese government spokesman asserted that the United States was entirely at fault in the collision. The spokesman, Zhu Banzao, quoted President Jiang Zemin as saying that the American aircraft violated international law by intruding on China's airspace and landing on the island without permission.
"The responsibility fully lies with the American side. We have full evidence for that," Mr. Zhu quoted the Chinese president as saying.
"China is the victim," Mr. Zhu said.
He reiterated Chinese demands that the United States stop surveillance flights off the coast of China. He would not say whether Chinese officials had gone aboard the American plane, but asserted that China had the right to investigate the accident.
"If this plane is sovereign American territory, how did it land in China?" Mr. Zhu said. "There's no question of immunity at all. Therefore China has all rights to handle this case."
Up until today the American officials had had very little contact with the Chinese since they arrived Monday from the mainland. Officials said privately that they did not know what to expect, and that all negotiations over the arrangements had been conducted from Beijing, with the local officials just waiting for calls from the central government.
With tensions over the incident rising, American officials warned on Monday that further delays in sending the crew home and returning the spy plane could damage the already fragile relations between the two countries.
The incident has cast a cold-war pall over China's dealings with the Bush administration. The United States is keeping three warships in the area to maintain pressure on Beijing.
General Sealock, the defense attaché, and Bradley Kaplan, the naval attaché, came from Beijing to meet with the crew members and to arrange their return home and the repair and return of the EP-3E aircraft. The pilot of the Chinese jet that collided with the American plane remained missing at sea after apparently ejecting from his aircraft, Chinese state media reported.
China has charged that the larger, slower EP-3E turned suddenly and collided with the Chinese F-8 jet, one of two that had been sent to track the American spy plane as it approached Chinese airspace.
American officials have dismissed the charge, saying that smaller, faster jets bear responsibility for keeping out of the path of larger aircraft. They say that Chinese jets sent to track American surveillance aircraft have become increasingly reckless in recent months and that the United States had already complained about the risks of a collision.
Anger over the incident continued to mount among young Chinese, many of whom equated the loss of the Chinese pilot to the death of three Chinese journalists after American warplanes bombed the country's embassy in Belgrade two years ago.
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