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Jiang demands U.S. apology for plane collision
HAIKOU, China -- Chinese President Jiang Zemin has repeated demands that the U.S. formally apologize for Sunday's midair collision between a U.S. Navy spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet. "The United States should apologize to the Chinese for this incident and bear all responsibility for the consequences," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Jiang as saying shortly before he left China for a tour of Latin America. He also expressed his concern for the Chinese pilot who has been missing since his jet fighter crashed shortly after the collision with the Navy surveillance plane. Jiang's demand comes as U.S. consular officials are pressing for meetings with higher-level Chinese officials to secure the release of the crew of the Navy plane. They were forced to make an emergency landing at an airfield on the Chinese island of Hainan after their aircraft was badly damaged in the collision. The diplomats have been frustrated by what they say are dealings with low- to mid- level provincial officials, who are not senior enough to make the decision whether to release the crew and the airplane. Earlier in Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush called on the Chinese government to "do the right thing" and release the plane and its crew as soon as possible saying the growing dispute threatens to damage Sino-U.S. relations. "This accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries," Bush said. He also said he wanted to give China time to respond to the weekend episode, to prevent the stalemate from becoming a full crisis. But Bush also hinted a grace period was running out. Aircrew 'detained'But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell didn't pull his punches, when he described the crew of the Navy spy plane in China as being "detained," and added the standoff was not good for bilateral relations. "The Chinese have said they're (the crew) being protected, I don't know from what," Powell told reporters. "In my judgement, they're being detained," he said. "They're being held incommunicado, under circumstances which I don't find acceptable." Senior U.S. officials told CNN that the 24 crew members were being held in a military guest house, except the pilot, who is being held alone. Powell has warned that the current situation is "not good for relations" between Washington and Beijing. "I think there is some damage right now, but it's recoverable," he said. The plane was said to be filled with high-technology eavesdropping equipment that would be sure to interest the Chinese. A U.S. official who asked not to be identified told Reuters that satellite images show Chinese engineers "working on the airplane, taking a wrench to it, fooling around with it, examining it, tinkering with it." China has insisted that it has every right to examine the plane now that it is on its territory. Quoting the Chinese president, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao Wednesday dismissed U.S. statements that China has no right to inspect the aircraft. 'China is the victim'He said that one of the Chinese F-8 fighter jets had crashed into the South China Sea and that its pilot is missing. "The responsibility lies fully with the U.S. side," he said in Beijing. "China is the victim. The damaged aircraft is Chinese. The missing pilot is Chinese. It was the U.S. plane which entered Chinese air space in violation of relevant regulations and landed on Chinese territory without permission." Despite the strong words from China, the Bush administration has no plans to apologize to China for the collision, a U.S. official said. "We expect such rhetoric in the back and forth over this," the official told CNN. Pentagon sources have said the crew of the EP-3 aircraft deserved a medal for landing their craft down safely on the Chinese island of Hainan. Immediately after the collision the damaged aircraft plummeted thousands of feet before the pilots regained control, a defense source said. But because the crew was probably focused on trying to bring the plane down safely, the source said they probably wouldn't have had the time to completely destroy or disable sensitive data and encryption software. U.S. diplomats who met with the crew Tuesday, said they couldn't ask how much of the procedure was completed, because Chinese authorities were present at the meeting. The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES:
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