The day before the deal -- a nail-biter for Bush administration

From Andrea Koppel
CNN State Department Correspondent

In Washington and Beijing, with freedom for 24 U.S. spy plane crew members hanging in the balance, Tuesday was a day of deafening diplomatic silence.

For the first time since negotiations between U.S and Chinese diplomats had gotten under way, there were no meetings.

One senior State Department official said U.S. officials figured that was because the Chinese were busy "making up their minds" -- deciding whether to accept the final draft of a letter in which Washington said it was "very sorry" for the death of the Chinese pilot killed in a collision with the American plane and the plane's forced landing on Chinese soil.

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"It took Beijing much longer to get back to us" than they had expected, explained the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in Skojpe, Macedonia, during Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to the Balkans.

China experts at the State Department were fairly certain the endgame was near and a deal was imminent on Monday. One official said the "first real hints" came when the Chinese press began to play "sympathetic" portions of Powell's letter to Vice Premier Qian Qichen Monday and suddenly agreed to a meeting to discuss "logistics of the (U.S.) crew's departure."

Then on Wednesday morning the United States' Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing met with officials at the Foreign Ministry, who told him China would accept the letter. The diplomatic to and fro of the last 11 days finally came to an end later that day when U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher was told to come to the Foreign Ministry with the letter at 5:30 p.m.

In the end, the Bush administration believes it was a combination of "diplomacy and clear red lines set by the president" that broke the impasse.

"The first thing the president established was (the necessity for) prompt access to the crew," said a senior State Department official, referring to what transpired April 2 and April 3, the two days after the plane's landing on Hainan Island.

Tuesday morning -- April 3 -- Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice decided that Powell should "express regret" for the apparent loss of life of the Chinese F-8 pilot.

"It was an attempt to take a step towards the Chinese," said this senior official.

However, in a news conference later Tuesday in Key West, Florida, Powell made no mention of "regret." It was not until the plane ride back to Washington Tuesday evening that he first used the word with the traveling press corps.

This statement followed another stern message from President Bush earlier Tuesday in which he said, "It is time for our servicemen and women to return home. It is time for the Chinese government to return our plane."

State Department officials dismiss any insinuation Powell's off-camera expression of "regret" was designed to soften the president's tough talk.

But Wednesday, China's President Jiang Zemin -- matching Bush in tone and tenor -- again demanded a U.S. "apology" for the midair collision. Powell later repeated his expression of "regret" on-camera after his meeting that day with Jordan's King Abdullah.

That night, Powell called China's ambassador to the State Department in order to hand him a personal letter for Vice-Premier Qian who had just arrived in South America on a two-week trip with China's president.

Thursday Ambassador Yang Jiechi returned to the State Department with Qian's written response.

From Thursday on, most of the diplomatic exchanges took place between U.S. Ambassador Prueher and China's assistant foreign minister in Beijing as they worked out acceptable language for a final letter.

Prueher told the Chinese "they could do this or they could organize it (the letter) this way," said a senior State Department official.

Although China's press leaked portions of the discussions that sounded quite negative, U.S. officials now say "there was enough in (his) letter that confirmed the track we were on" was the right one.

On Saturday the Bush administration decided to add "very" to the two "sorrys" in the text of the final agreement.

Sunday, Powell upped the ante and for the first time used the word "sorrow" in addition to "regret" when referring to the loss of the Chinese pilot's life and the failure of the crew of the US EP-3 to gain clearance to land at Hainan island.

By Monday the final rhetorical flourishes were complete and the waiting game began.

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USCINCPAC Homepage
The Pentagon
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Navy Fact File: EP-3E ORION (ARIES II) Aircraft
U.S. Department of Defense
Government of China (in Chinese)
U.S. Department of State
Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the U.S.A.
Government Information Office, Republic of China

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