Standoff a Cue for Future Relations

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 7, 2001 | by Jennifer G. Hickey

Now that the U.S. Navy surveillance-plane crew has been repatriated, the Bush administration can turn attention to how to deal with the Chinese in the future. Then there is the budget.

Apparently not content with disturbing the domestic waters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson gave warning of his intention to "mediate the return" of 24 U.S. servicemen held captive on Hainan Island, People's Republic of China. The one-time adviser to Bill Clinton (who has yet to "apologize" to Paula Jones) took stock of his expertise in U.S.-Sino relations and concluded, "The differences between `regret,' `sorry' and `apology' are not so great to jeopardize national security." With the additional threat of intervention by sometime presidential candidate H. Ross Perot (who rescued some of his employees from captivity in Iran in 1979), it was no surprise that the United States and China quickly reached an agreement for the crew's return.

By the afternoon of April 12, the crew of the EP-3E surveillance plane was back on U.S. soil, President George W. Bush effectively had dealt with his first foreign-policy crisis, and Jackson's cries were drowned out by the din of the U.S. and Chinese governments offering their own -- and very different -- interpretations of the crisis resolution.

The state-run media in China continued to feed its citizens the heavy course of propaganda it had been serving since the April 1 collision between the $100 million EP-3E turboprop and the hotdogging Chinese fighter. While pointing an accusatory finger at the United States for "ramming" the Chinese craft, the state-run Xinhua News Agency worked tirelessly to gin up nationalist sentiment, particularly among university students.

Xinhua noted that even the Chinese community in Ukraine "voiced firm support for the Chinese government," and reported the "Chinese residing in Cote Divoire [sic] have shown great concern for the safety of [Chinese pilot] Wang Wei." Furthermore, with most Chinese lacking even limited access to alternative media over the Internet, the regime often creatively finessed comments made in Western sources, including the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and Fox News Sunday.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin will retire in a few years, and he appeared to be attempting to use the incident to shore up support for the Communist Party leadership and to justify the costs of a high-tech military buildup so dear to his hard-line allies. The propaganda engaged patriotic nationalism and appeared more important to the regime's domestic politics. Jiang, in an interview with Xinhua, declared victory and maintained the United States had expressed sorrow "for the incident of a U.S. military reconnaissance plane ramming into and destroying a Chinese military aircraft." While repatriating the Americans for "humanitarian reasons," he assured his countrymen that "the incident has not been fully settled."

That is one matter about which both sides agree. Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., a member of the House International Relations Committee, tells Insight, "I think the president has handled it very well by preventing a tough situation from becoming worse. ... [But] the holding of our plane is an illegal act and, if they have been stealing our technology, that is illegal as well. This crisis will not be over until our plane is returned."

Although analysts abounded to offer an opinion on the apology or nonapology, the intention of the Bush administration to retrieve the EP-3E was clear and unequivocal. "It's American property, and we expect our plane back," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the Pentagon spokesman, at a televised press conference.

The return of the surveillance plane, as well as discussion of how future "collisions could be avoided," were put on the agenda for when U.S. and Chinese officials meet on April 18. However, Bush officials, including national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, indicated surveillance flights would continue unabated -- as will the debate over U.S. policy toward China and how Bush should handle any future Chinese obtruperations.

Frank Gaffney Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, says the answer to questions about which direction U.S.-Sino relations will move and how deftly Bush managed the crisis are one and the same. "If [the administration] follows up with a very firm position on China, and discusses the real China to the American people with direct candor, then that is the right direction. But if they suggest or act as if it's back to business as usual, then this will be seen as another in a long litany of growing and expanding Chinese provocations" to which the United States has backed down.

"The consequences of the aggressive action remain to be seen. We've got to educate the hard-liners in China that there are consequences when they act in a belligerent manner toward us," argues Pitts, who disclosed his intention to ask House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., to hold hearings on the situation as soon as the panel is properly briefed.