CTV Television, Inc. CTV NEWS April 2, 2001 23:00:00 - 23:30:00 Eastern Time
Growing tension between US and China
LLOYD ROBERTSON: Good evening. After a day of escalating tensions, there is some movement late tonight to ease a standoff between the United States and China. Amid growing impatience from the White House, Beijing is finally allowing US diplomats to visit the captive crew of a crippled American spy plane stranded in China. The plane, crammed with top secret eavesdropping equipment, was forced to land on the Chinese island of Hainan yesterday after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea. The mid air tangle triggered a bitter war of words with the two sides trading blame and angry accusations. CTV's Alan Fryer has more from Washington. Alan what's the latest?
ALAN FRYER [Reporter]: Well Lloyd, facing his first potential international crisis, the President was talking tough. George Bush demanding a quick response from China.
GEORGE W. BUSH [US President]: That the Chinese must promptly allow us to have contact with the 24 airmen and women that are there and return our plane to us without any further tampering. I sent a very clear message, and I expect them to heed the message.
FRYER: But the Chinese, as they often are, have been slow to respond, slow to act.
JOSEPH PRUEHER [US Ambassador to China]: It is inexplicable and unacceptable and of great concern to the most senior leaders in the United States government that the air crew has been held incommunicado and that the Chinese so far have given no explanation for holding the crew.
FRYER: The Pentagon claims the plane was on a routine spy mission in international air space, the Chinese claim it's their air space, listening in on the Chinese military when one of two Chinese fighters collided with it. The Chinese jet and its pilot were lost, the American spy plane, like this one, forced to make an emergency landing on the Chinese island of Hainan. US officials believe crew members were forced off the plane at gunpoint and are being held at this air base. Worse, that the Chinese have been busy mining the plane's military secrets although the crew may have been able to destroy or disable some of the equipment.
JOHN PIKE [Director, Globalsecurity.org]: The United States has spent billions of dollars and decades perfecting this technology on the aries. There's simply no other country that can copy this capability unless they have one of ours.
FRYER: US Officials fear hardliners in Beijing may want to delay giving back the plane and its crew, a kind of high stakes protest against the possible sale of new weapons systems to Taiwan. Still, the US, while talking tough, seems anxious, at least for now, to keep the temperature down. Three warships that had been ordered into the region, as a sign of US displeasure, have now been called back. Lloyd.
ROBERTSON: So Alan, it appears cooler heads are prevailing in Washington and Beijing, but there could still be trouble right?
FRYER: Well sure, the US is very well aware of the power struggle of sources going on in Beijing between the moderates who want better relations with Washington and who, for example, don't want to do anything to jeopardize Beijing's bids for the Olympic games and for membership in the World Trade Organization, the struggle going on between those people, and the hard liners who want to take a tougher stand against the US. The Bush administration very anxious, at least in the early days of this standoff, not to do or say anything that might give the hard-liners the upper hand.
ROBERTSON: Thank you Alan.
FRYER: Goodnight Lloyd.
ROBERTSON: The spy plane incident comes at a time of increasingly strained relations between Washington and Beijing. Just nine days ago a Chinese warship chased a US Navy ship out of international waters in the Yellow Sea. Also in march, an American academic was arrested in China, accused of spying. In February the US launched a stinging attack on China's human rights record. When George Bush became US President in January he pledged to take a tougher line with China. He's about to decide whether to sell advanced US Weapons to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.
Copyright 2001 CTV Television, Inc.
