Washington Post
April 10, 2001
Pg. 1
Bush Backs Diplomacy, But Also Warns China
By Mike Allen and Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writers
With the administration's hopes waning for a quick end to the standoff with China, President Bush warned Americans yesterday that "diplomacy takes time," but showed his impatience by declaring three times that relations could be damaged if a Navy crew remains captive.
U.S. officials contended they were making quiet progress in diplomatic efforts to win release of the 24 crew members who made an emergency landing in China after their surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet nine days ago. But Chinese officials insisted again on an apology, called Washington's statements of regret insufficient and described Chinese President Jiang Zemin as "highly unsatisfied."
Despite Chinese claims that the U.S. EP-3E Aries II swerved into the Chinese F-8 fighter, a Pentagon official said the Navy plane was on autopilot at the time of the crash. Although the slow, propeller-driven U.S. plane might have turned while on autopilot, it would not have been a sudden movement, the official said.
Pentagon officials also provided other new details, saying the collision occurred as the Chinese pilot made his third pass at the U.S. aircraft, coming up from behind and below the EP-3E.
According to their account, the F-8 came within feet of the U.S. plane during the earlier passes, and the final time around, its tail section struck the EP-3E. The Chinese jet broke into two pieces, while the U.S. aircraft plunged 5,000 to 8,000 feet. At that point, the American pilot, identified yesterday as Navy Lt. Shane Osborn, had "only one choice," which was to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island, a Pentagon official said.
Bush, speaking calmly but insistently in front of television cameras at the start of a Cabinet meeting, said: "All of us around this table understand diplomacy takes time. But there is a point, the longer it goes, there's a point at which our relations with China could become damaged."
Asked what more he can do, Bush added: "We're working behind the scenes. We've got every diplomatic channel open. We're in discussions with the Chinese. It is now time for our troops to come home, so that our relationship does not become damaged."
Administration officials pointedly suggested that if China prolonged the ordeal, the administration could withdraw its support for legislation promoting trade between the countries, oppose China's bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics and cancel a visit to Beijing that Bush has planned for October.
The U.S. Embassy in China yesterday received a letter from Bush to the widow of the Chinese pilot who died in the crash. Last week, she had sent the president a letter calling him "cowardly" for his refusal to apologize. An official who has seen Bush's note said it was just a few sentences long -- "short and heartfelt," the official said -- and expressed his deepest sympathies for her loss.
"He said he and all Americans join her in her hope for peace," the official said. "He said the tragic accident had affected many lives, none more than her family's."
Administration officials contended that what they have been hearing privately from China is more encouraging than the public hostility. State Department officials also took encouragement from the state-run New China News Agency's decision to quote the U.S. ambassador to China, Joseph W. Prueher, saying that the two sides were working toward an early resolution of the standoff.
But Beijing's public rhetoric remained harsh. In Buenos Aires, where Jiang is traveling on a 12-day Latin American tour, a Chinese foreign ministry official said a U.S. apology remains the key to resolving the impasse. "Where is the responsibility? I think it's very clear," said the official, Zhu Bangzao. "The pronouncements of the United States are unacceptable to the Chinese people."
His comments came as a surprise to U.S. officials, because earlier in the day Prueher had discussed with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong a third draft of a letter designed to end the standoff, and Zhou had suggested only minor changes, according to a source close to the administration.
While refusing to confirm the account of Prueher's meeting with Zhou, a senior State Department official said the talks had been productive. "We think that at any moment when the Chinese understand that we've done as much as we can, they can end it," the official said. "The question is when will they, and nobody's predicting."
Also yesterday, two U.S. officials visited all of the crew members for 40 minutes, after a session Saturday in which diplomats were allowed to see only eight of them. The crew is being held in "a hotel environment," with air conditioning, U.S. officials said after the visit.
Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock, the U.S. defense attache in Beijing, also said the crew members were "in excellent health" and had been receiving messages and items sent by their families. "They've been able to clean their uniforms and do all those sorts of things -- they are being well taken care of," Sealock said.
U.S. officials said that commercial and government satellite photos taken yesterday showed seven Chinese military trucks parked next to the plane, fueling speculation that Chinese specialists have begun removing sensitive intelligence-gathering equipment from the plane.
Some former government analysts said the commercial photos appeared to show Chinese workers ripping apart the plane's fuselage, but a senior Defense Department official dismissed those claims. He said a higher-resolution government photo taken four hours later showed the fuselage intact.
John Pike, a defense and intelligence analyst who is director of Global Security.org, said the commercial photos, taken by Space Imaging, a Colorado firm, showed "a big chunk out of the right rear fuselage."
Patrick G. Eddington, who worked for the CIA as a satellite photo interpreter from 1988 to 1996, cautioned that light and shadow can play tricks with satellite images, but said he also thought the Space Imaging photos showed that part of the plane was being disassembled.
Members of Congress, who were mostly supportive of Bush's shift from toughness to conciliation during the first week of the crisis, have begun to be critical. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised the possibility of recalling Prueher, who has been the point person in the negotiations.
"There's a point at which it becomes inappropriate to have our ambassador in a country holding our military personnel as virtual hostages," Torricelli said in an interview.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a former Pentagon official during the Reagan administration, predicted that the incident would be "the end of Bush's honeymoon with conservatives" if he did not begin making more of a case about "the challenge China represents."
"He thinks he's sending the signal to the Chinese that the time is up, but I think they're reading it as weakness and an invitation to take more time," said Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy. "There is a growing restiveness among conservatives, who feel he is giving these guys a pass."
Staff writers Vernon Loeb and Edward Walsh contributed to this report.
