Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Arab-Israeli Solution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: c.horn who wrote (208)	4/8/2001 2:30:38 PM
From: Carolyn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2279

Gee, chorn, you a big tipper? <g>

To: c.horn who wrote (208)	4/8/2001 4:28:39 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 2279

And then we have this article: China's Military Takes Tough Line on Plane Crisis go2net.com Apr 8 1:43pm ET By Jeremy Page BEIJING (Reuters) - Twenty-four U.S. air crew entered their second week in detention on Sunday, and China's powerful military weighed in with a hardline stand that risked prolonging the crisis. Senior U.S. officials, meanwhile, warned that the incident had already hurt China-U.S. relations and called for a quick release of the crew to avoid worse damage. Despite U.S. pressure for unrestricted access twice daily to the 21 men and three women held on Hainan Island, Chinese authorities gave no approval for any contact on Sunday. It also emerged that only eight of the 21 had been permitted to attend the last meeting, on Saturday night. Nevertheless, Chinese and U.S. officials continued work on drafting a joint communiqu aimed at resolving the dispute. China is demanding a full apology, but Washington has ruled that out. Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian said the United States would not be allowed to escape responsibility for last Sunday's collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter, which crashed into the South China Sea with the loss of its pilot. The main military newspaper, the Liberation Army Daily, quoted him saying the collision was "entirely caused by the U.S. side." China "will not let them push the blame onto others," he said during a visit to Ruan Guoqin, wife of the missing pilot. In an indication that the military could delay any quick resolution of the crisis, the paper said Chinese authorities had the right to conduct "a full and thorough investigation of the entire incident, including those responsible on the U.S. military plane and the U.S. military plane itself." And it demanded that the United States halt all surveillance flights off China's coast. Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was no evidence of U.S. responsibility for the crash. "The relationship is being damaged," Powell told the "Fox News Sunday" program. "In order for the damage to be undone and for no further damage to occur, we've got to bring this matter to a close as soon as possible." PICKING THE WORDS Powell called on China quickly to release the Americans, whose top-secret EP-3 plane made an emergency landing on Hainan. He suggested that bilateral damage could extend to the lucrative trade front where Beijing risks losing additional votes to keep its favorable trading status. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said on CNN that, while he did not favor penalizing the world's most populous nation, "certainly they've acted wrongly, and I think they've complicated their situation immensely just in the last week." U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that the United States would not offer the full apology demanded by China. "The president has made it clear we regret the loss of the Chinese pilot as a result of this accident," Cheney said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "The notion that we would apologize for being in international air space, for example, is not something we can accept." Top Chinese leaders are anxious to avoid a meltdown in China-U.S. ties, but any compromise they make would have to take into consideration the reaction of hawkish generals in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Political analysts said it was likely that some factions in the PLA were keen to use the detained Americans to humiliate the United States as payback for a string of perceived insults and aggressive actions toward China. China's military brass is still smarting from the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, which Washington says was an accident. The PLA is alarmed by the prospect of U.S. sales of high technology weapons to Taiwan and U.S. plans for a missile defense shield that would emasculate China's small nuclear arsenal. President Jiang Zemin heads the armed forces as head of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission and must tread a fine line between his desire for strong ties with the United States and his need to retain military support. Efforts to end the crisis appear to hinge on a choice of words in a communiqu being drafted that would allow a face-saving way out for both Jiang and President Bush. Powell said China and the United States were still in "intense negotiations" and "things are moving along." U.S. DEMANDS FREE ACCESS Defense Minister Chi was quoted by the army newspaper as saying that the plane incident showed China needed to beef up its military to defend against "hegemonism" -- Beijing's code word for the United States. "We must turn our anger at hegemonism into tremendous motive force," Chi said during his visit to the wife of the missing fighter pilot. "We must go all-out to make our country and our armed forces still stronger." In Haikou, U.S. diplomats spent the day fruitlessly waiting for permission for a fourth meeting with the crew. The White House revealed that only eight of the crew, including the pilot, had been at Saturday's meeting, where U.S. diplomats passed on e-mails from home, toiletries and the latest American sports scores. "With regard to future access, we are still working hard for unfettered daily access to the crew and we asked to see them twice a day," Defense Attach Brigadier-General Neal Sealock told reporters. "I trust that we will continue to have this access on a daily basis," he said. CNN quoted U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice as saying "we want unfettered access." She said Chinese limitations on Saturday's meeting "isn't helpful." Free access to the crew may help buy time for what could be a long and tortuous negotiation over the letter, which U.S. officials said would also set out a mechanism for an exchange of views on the incident.