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Bush Turns Up Heat On China
WASHINGTON, April 3 (News Agencies) - President George W. Bush turned up the diplomatic heat on China Tuesday, warning that it would seriously damage long-term relations with Washington if it refused to immediately hand over a stranded U.S. spy plane and its crew.
Adopting a steely new tone on the affair, Bush said it was time for Beijing to act or risk escalating a row that erupted when the E-P3 Aries plane made an emergency landing in China after a collision with a Chinese fighter Sunday.
"Now it is time for our servicemen and women to return home, and it is time for the Chinese government to return our plane," Bush said in a terse statement in the White House Rose Garden, hours after detained crew members were finally allowed to meet U.S. envoys.
Putting U.S. relations with China on the line - Bush warned the diplomatic storm could wreak long-term damage on hopes for smooth sailing between Washington and Beijing.
"This accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries.
"To keep that from happening our servicemen and women need to come home," said Bush in a statement seen by some analysts as an appeal to moderates in China who may fear rupturing ties with Washington.
Bush said his approach had been to keep the collision over the South China Sea from becoming an "international incident."
Therefore, he said he had so far allowed Beijing the "time to do the right thing."
His statement, carried live on U.S. television news networks, came hours after American diplomats met the U.S. crew in southern China for the first time, but gave no clue as to when they would be released.
The President assured family members that the crew was in "good health, they suffered no injuries and they have not been mistreated."
"Our crew members expressed their faith in America and we have faith in them."
Bush's statement came after U.S. officials admitted that China had probably ignored warnings that boarding the plane, packed with sensitive surveillance equipment, would be an infringement of international law.
"We suppose that the Chinese certainly boarded the aircraft," U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Joseph Prueher said in an interview with NBC.
Prueher said it was still unclear how much sensitive military information the Chinese may have culled from the aircraft - but added that the crew would have carried out orders to destroy data once they plane was endangered.
CNN television quoted unnamed Pentagon sources as saying that Chinese technicians had not only entered the plane, but had removed equipment.
Administration officials said though that the situation was unclear.
"It is very difficult to determine exactly what's going on the ground there, but we have no indications that they are carting stuff off the plane," an administration official told AFP.
China has refused to accept the U.S. characterization of the collision as an accident.
President Jiang Zemin said in his own statement Tuesday that the blame "fully lies with the American side."
"It is the U.S. plane, in violation of flying rules, that made dangerous moves, bumped into and destroyed our plane and caused our pilot [to go] missing," the Chinese leader said.
But Washington is refusing to say sorry. Prueher said in another interview that he and the government would have a "problem" with making an apology.
The incident comes at a highly sensitive time in U.S.-China relations, in the early days of the Bush administration, which has promised to take a tough line with Beijing on security issues and human rights.
The President 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 in the sale destroyers equipped with the Aegis battle management system, which can be used to shoot down missiles.
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