The Seattle Times April 5, 2001
U.S., China soften words, seek way out
Powell, others 'regret' deadly plane collisionKnight Ridder Newspapers and The Associated Press
WASHINGTON--The Bush administration offered Beijing a chorus of regrets--but no apology--for the collision between a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese jet fighter.
China, detaining 24 American crewmen and women, said it was a step in the right direction, amid signs that both sides wanted a face-saving resolution.
"We regret that the Chinese plane did not get down safely, and we regret the loss of life of that Chinese pilot," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "But now we need to move on."
He also sent a letter of regret.
Similar statements by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and others appeared to be an attempt to offer China's leaders a way out of the standoff.
In diplomacy, an apology means accepting responsibility. Expressing regret does not. Fleischer said the United States "doesn't understand the reason for an apology" because the U.S. plane was in international airspace and did nothing wrong.
Day 4 of the standoff began with Chinese President Jiang Zemin demanding an apology, before he left for a tour of Latin America.
But he also said the United States should "do something favorable to the smooth development of China-U.S. relations," which administration officials took as a signal that Beijing would welcome any act of contrition.
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan echoed Jiang's call for an apology in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher but also said China hoped to see the incident "resolved as soon as possible" with China protecting its sovereignty and dignity.
In Washington, Chinese Embassy spokesman Zhang Yuan Yuan called Powell's remarks "a step in the right direction."
Pentagon offers precedents
Releasing the crew is the "bright line" China must cross, said a top Powell aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. If the standoff is not resolved soon, "then it just keeps getting worse ... you're into 'Day 41 of the airplane-crew saga.' "
The EP-3, based at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, was forced to land at a Chinese military base on Hainan Island after a collision with one of two fighter jets dispatched to shadow it.
Zhang Hongxi, China's consul general in New York, referred to photos that showed damage to the plane's nose cone. "Anyone who has knowledge of traffic incidents will know that if a car hits another one, then the front of that car will surely be damaged," Zhang said. "We all know that it is the U.S. plane that hit our plane. ... The U.S. side should bear the full responsibilities."
The Pentagon yesterday tried to bolster the U.S. claim that the EP-3 was sovereign U.S. territory, off-limits to China. It said that in 1974 a Russian spy plane was allowed to land at a U.S. airbase in Alaska, was refueled and allowed to leave without Americans boarding it.
In 1993, a Chinese civilian airplane made an emergency landing at another military airbase in Alaska, and Americans treated injured passengers before they were flown out on another Chinese plane.
Data apparently destroyed
Although White House officials insisted the United States wants the plane returned, "what I'm hearing more of is more talk about the crew and less talk about the plane," said a military official who asked not to be identified.
U.S. officials may be downplaying the return of the plane because in a meeting Tuesday in Hainan, the EP-3 personnel indicated that they were able to destroy sensitive material before landing.
When asked by an Army general in the presence of Chinese officials whether they had completed "the checklist"--a veiled reference to destruction procedures--the crew shouted in unison, "Yes!" according to a senior U.S. official.
The procedures would have involved erasing data and software from computer hard drives and smashing CD-ROMs, floppy disks and key pieces of equipment, including cryptographic systems that encode the electronic signals gathered by the plane.
The EP-3 did not have a paper shredder, so the crew would have used acid to destroy top-secret documents, books and charts, Pentagon officials said.
Procedures would have required the crew, which under a 1994 CIA directive must rehearse them before each mission, to then toss as much as possible out of the aircraft.
But China has the hardware
Defense experts said the Chinese could gain important knowledge from the aircraft's "Big Look" radar and other components that sweep phone, radio, fax and missile-guidance signals.
For instance, Chinese experts could gain insights into U.S. computer-chip technology, composite materials and advanced metals. By examining the antennae, they could discern the frequencies that the U.S. monitors in China, and then change them.
But "the most sensitive and important part is the software" that is presumably destroyed, said John Pike, a defense expert with GlobalSecurity.com. "It's basically the difference between a live witness and doing an autopsy on a corpse."
Furthermore, China has experts who already can operate the kind of equipment aboard the EP-3, said Wayne Madsen, a former intelligence officer with the secret National Security Agency.
These CIA-trained Chinese experts eavesdrop on Russia and Central Asia from two
U.S.-built listening posts in western China and pass data to the United States.
Copyright 2001 The Seattle Times Company
