Another (interesting) AP News China story.
April 7, 2001
China Planes Dogged Spy Flights
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It had become a ritual over the South China Sea: The Americans
lumbering along in their jalopy of the sky, the Chinese dogging them in their speedy
fighter jets.
Then the crunch and spray of shredded metal turned a risky exercise into a deadly one
for a Chinese pilot.
And President Bush, on his 71st day running the White House, was handed his first
entanglement with a power he calls America's ``strategic competitor.'' It is a nation that
may have come into a windfall of U.S. intelligence when the crippled Navy plane came
out of the sky.
------
Under a blazing tropical sun, pilot Wang Wei hurtled toward the choppy waters on April
1 after his jet's collision with the Navy EP-3E, an outwardly rudimentary propellor plane
packed with surveillance technology.
A familiar pest to U.S. aviators, a defender of the motherland to the Chinese, father of a
6-year-old boy to his family, Wang radioed to a fellow F-8 pilot that he wanted to bail
out. Those were his last known words.
Two dozen Americans, on a plane about the size of a Boeing 737, could only sit out their
own terror.
With the nose cone gone and two of four propellors damaged or destroyed, the plane
known as a ``flying pig'' plunged 8,000 feet before the pilot gained control, a U.S. official
said.
As Secretary of State Colin Powell put it, the descent was ``pretty hairy.''
The crew apparently found the presence of mind amid the rows of radar consoles to
begin wrecking high-tech spy equipment and erasing secrets before the emergency
landing. How far they got is of exceptional interest to both countries.
Twenty-six minutes after the collision, according to U.S. information, they were on
blessed ground.
But it was Chinese ground. And they were not invited.
Their welcome to Hainan island, a one-time gangster paradise that calls itself the ``Hawaii
of China'' with an eye to tourism, was all business. Chinese authorities brushed aside
diplomatic niceties and boarded, U.S. officials said.
Like road-rage adversaries arguing in the breakdown lane, officials from both countries
began exchanging blame.
Your plane swerved and hit ours, the Chinese said.
Not so, said the Americans. They said their flying pig could not make such a sharp turn
if it wanted to.
``It's not a normal practice,'' said Pacific Command chief Adm. Dennis Blair, ``to play
bumpercars in the air.''
------
The accident happened late on the night of March 31, Washington time. Bush, spending
the weekend at Camp David with his wife and friends, got first word in a phone call
about 11 p.m. from Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser.
U.S. officials adjusted their body clocks to Beijing time. Senior people at the Pentagon
worked through the wee hours; sign sheets showed them going until 6 a.m.
On Monday, Bush addressed ``this incident'' with measured words.
He did not assign blame. He wanted the crew back and the plane, too, ``without further
damaging or tampering,'' he said.
The president complained about lack of U.S. access to the detained Americans and said a
prompt Chinese response was called for in order for the two nations to achieve their goal
of better relations.
Bush had come to office with a new wariness of China, one that underscored the
competitive nature of the relationship while recognizing the trading partners have many
peaceful common interests.
But it was actually during the last months of the Clinton administration that the United
States began to step up its reconnaissance flights in the Pacific. Geopolitical interests are
shifting to Asia, and there are specific tensions with China over matters such as U.S.
arms sales to Taiwan.
Indeed, Wang was known to U.S. fliers for his past intercepts. In one instance, he was
said to have flown so close to one plane that he could show the Americans his e-mail
address, presumably in case they wished to swap cat-and-mouse tales later.
It is not known whether the Americans took him up on the offer. But they did take his
picture.
------
At Whidbey Island Naval Air Station at Oak Harbor, Wash., home of the crew, their
families gathered in a chapel for a prayer service Monday.
They knew their loved ones were all safe, but little else.
Yellow ribbons, the symbols of longing for captives, were tied on trees and posts. In
Norfolk, Neb., Bill Osborn put one on his wrought-iron front door for his nephew, Lt.
Shane Osborn.
On Tuesday, U.S. envoys were allowed to meet the 21 men and three women for the
first time. The Americans look glum in the photograph.
But when asked by an Army general in the presence of Chinese officials whether they
had tackled ``the checklist,'' the crew shouted in unison, ``Yes!'' according to a U.S.
official briefed on the exchange.
The checklist was a veiled reference to procedures for the destruction of sensitive
material on the plane.
After the meeting, the U.S. envoys went shopping, loading up on deodorant, underwear
and other small necessities for the crew.
Hainan-style detention has not been one of hardship, as Powell described it after U.S.
diplomats were granted a second meeting Friday.
Powell said the crew has been put up in officers' quarters and given catered food, with
the three women in one room, the commander alone in another, and the other men paired
off.
``So the Chinese are taking good care of our men and women.''
On Saturday, at 1 a.m. in Hainan, two U.S. representatives met the crew members for a
third time, an hour accorded after a day of waiting.
------
China's repeated demands for an apology brought something less from the United States
-- expressions of regret over the loss of the Chinese pilot and the jet fighter, but no
acceptance of responsibility.
Even that was considered ``a step in the right direction'' by Beijing, and negotiations
intensified.
In both capitals and across the world's time zones, ambassadors and foreign ministers
came and went, carrying messages and letters -- including one being reviewed by Bush
and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, hoping to reach a ``common understanding'' about an
uncommon event.
Still, Chinese officials held to their view that the U.S. plane was being provocative by
operating near their coast -- some 70 nautical miles from Hainan -- that the emergency
landing was an illegal intrusion and that Americans had caused the accident.
``American planes come to the edge of our country and they don't say `Excuse me,'''
Jiang said. ``This sort of conduct is not acceptable in any country.''
China's state-owned media were filled with news of the accident; TV news shows were
extended and the second pilot shadowing the Americans told his dramatic story, shaking
his fist in anger.
``The outer propeller on the left wing hit the tail fin of Wang Wei's aircraft,'' Zhao Yu
said. ``Bam! It was smashed into bits, like little pieces.''
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press |
