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U.S. Demands Access To Crew Of Plane Downed In China
WASHINGTON, April 2 (News Agencies) - President George W. Bush on Monday demanded immediate access to the crew of a U.S. spy plane downed in China in an highly sensitive incident now shaping up as his first major foreign policy challenge.
"I am troubled by the lack of a timely Chinese response to our request for this access," said Bush, in his first public statement on the collision between the U.S. plane and a Chinese fighter jet on Sunday.
"I call on the Chinese government to grant this access promptly," a somber looking Bush said in the statement delivered in the grounds of the White House as the affair threatened to mushroom into a full blown diplomatic row.
The U.S. EP-3 Aries aircraft made an emergency landing on China's southern Hainan Island after colliding with a Chinese fighter that is still missing.
"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," Bush later told reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Bush's choice of words appeared to indicate that Chinese authorities might have already entered the plane.
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a bruising news briefing that he had "no information on whether or not the plane has been boarded by Chinese officials."
CNN television earlier quoted Chinese sources from Beijing as saying that Chinese officials had been on board the plane.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher could not confirm the reports but reiterated that the United States believed the aircraft, which contains sophisticated surveillance equipment, should not be touched.
"It is clearly our view that military aircraft have sovereign immunity under international law and practice," he said.
And he said that Chinese officials had told the U.S. ambassador to China late morning Washington time that consular access would be granted "tomorrow" (Tuesday).
Diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Beijing have flown to Hainan Island, but have so far not yet managed to speak directly to the 24-member crew or to see the plane, which is bristling with hi-tech monitoring equipment.
Bush said that the United States had offered to provide search and rescue assistance to help China locate the missing Chinese pilot and his jet.
But the president, who came to power promising to take a tough line with China, said Beijing would be acting contrary to diplomatic practice if it failed to allow U.S. consular officials to meet with the 24-member crew.
Bush earlier huddled with his national security team to map a response to the incident, which comes after a testy three months in Sino-U.S. relations since he took office.
White House aides said Bush had been due to see Secretary of State Colin Powell, but after the drama over the South China Sea he also invited Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
U.S. officials say the EP-3 was on a regular patrol over international waters when two Chinese jets intercepted it, one of which bumped into the wing of the U.S. aircraft.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Sunday the United States was totally to blame for the crash, and that Beijing had made "solemn representations" about the issue.
The incident comes amid mounting uncertainty in U.S.-China relations in the early months of the new U.S. administration.
Bush is expected this month to decide on the scope of a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, which Beijing views as a rebel province.
China has warned of a new era of confrontation with Washington if Bush includes destroyers equipped with the Aegis battle management system that can be used to repel missiles.
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