Author: Harvey Stockwin
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 4, 2001
The delay in resolving the crisis
over the crashed Chinese F-8 fighter and the US Navy's EP-3E reconnaissance
aircraft, which made an emergency landing on China's Hainan island, may
lead to further deterioration of Sino-American relations.
China has predictably adopted a
hardline nationalist posture to which the Bush Administration is unlikely
to respond, especially as China's demands are likely to provoke hardline
opinion within the United States.
The crisis has steadily intensified
ever since the EP-3E and the F-8 collided when two Chinese jets intercepted
the US propeller-driven aircraft south of Hainan around 9 a.m. last Sunday,
April 1.
After the collision, the damaged
US aircraft made an emergency landing at the PLA Lingshui air base in southern
Hainan. In the latest Chinese Foreign Ministry statement on the incident
this landing has been termed "illegal" and "an infringement upon China's
sovereignty over its territorial space".
The Americans claimed that the EP-3E
aircraft was their sovereign territory and should not be boarded by the
Chinese, a claim derided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is now disclosed that the Chinese
have been hard at work trying to learn as much as they can from the intelligence-gathering
aircraft. The plane has been covered by a tarpaulin so that the Americans
are no longer able to see what is actually happening to the plane from
their satellites in space.
US President George Bush made a
request for speedy access to the 24 members of the EP-3E on Monday evening
following earlier such requests from the US Ambassador to China, Admiral
Joseph Prueher. Eventually two US diplomats were able to see the crew under
restricted conditions late Tuesday -- over 60 hours after the plane had
landed.
The Chinese were much quicker in
announcing what had happened during the interception, insisting from the
start that all the blame lay with the slow US aircraft, which had veered
into the faster F-8. The Americans remain highly sceptical of this explanation,
pointing out that it was the F-8s that were doing the intercepting.
Photos released by the Chinese showing
the nose of the EP-3E has been completely sheared off certainly suggest
that the F-8 which crashed may have done the damage.
However the Chinese are insisting
that the Americans "must bear full responsibility, apologise to China,
and not seek any excuse to shirk its responsibility". The Americans, having
been prevented from debriefing the plane's crew as to what actually happened,
are obviously not likely to oblige.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin has
echoed these demands in his reported remarks. Jiang, who left China on
a visit to Latin America on Wednesday, has also demanded that all such
American reconnaissance flights should cease.
Since the Americans claim these
are routine flights through international airspace, they are most unlikely
to comply.
So far, the Chinese have refrained
from linking the EP-3E's flight to China's claim that the whole of the
South China Sea is its territorial waters. But the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs has stated that the flight violated China's air rights over its
exclusive economic zone, and "posed a serious threat to the security of
China".
In his second brief comment on the
crisis, President Bush refrained from justifications or rebuttals, but
merely repeated that the US wanted the speedy return of the crew and the
plane.
"This accident has the potential
of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between
our two countries" Bush said.
Right now, all the signs suggest
that the potential for gravely undermining Sino-American relations will
be realised.
