China tells US to end spy flights

China tells US to end spy flights
REUTERS

BEIJING, April 3: President Jiang Zemin said on Tuesday that the United States should accept full responsibility for the collision of a Chinese fighter and a US spy plane and halt all surveillance flights near China’s coast.

In his first public comments on the incident, Jiang made no mention of the fate of the 24 US crew members of the surveillance plane now in their third day of captivity on the Chinese island of Hainan.

US President George W. Bush on Monday demanded immediate US access to the crew and the return of the top-secret surveillance aircraft.

China has accused the US EP-3 plane of veering into one of two F-8 fighters on an interception mission 104 km (60 miles) South of Hainan in international air space. “We have sufficient evidence,” Jiang was quoted as telling the visiting Prime Minister of Qatar, Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.

US officials say they have been told that US diplomats now in Hainan will be allowed to see the 24 crew including three women on Tuesday night. Two of the diplomats left their hotel in the southern city of Sanya on Tuesday afternoon and were heading North for the city of Haikou, sparking speculation that the crew may be released and sent to Haikou, where there is an international airport.

“We cannot understand why the United States often sent its planes to make surveillance flights in areas so close to China,” the official Xinhua quoted Jiang as saying.

Jiang said the US should stop such flights and this would be “conducive to the development of the China-US relationship”. “And this time, in violation of international law and practice, the US plane bumped into our plane, invaded the Chinese territorial airspace and landed at our airport,” he said.

US officials were growing increasingly frustrated as the hours dragged by without contact with the crew, last heard from shortly after they landed in Hainan on Sunday when they radioed that armed Chinese soldiers were boarding the plane. “We are very pleased that we are going to get to see them tonight, or we expect to see them tonight,” US ambassador to China Admiral Joseph Prueher said in Beijing.

“We are not so pleased that it’s taken 60 hours in order to bring this about, that’s too long a time.”

He added: “We’re concerned that without good, regular communication this situation could worsen.

“Once the wellbeing of the air crew is assured, we remain concerned about the security of the aircraft and the recovery of the aircraft,” Prueher said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said the crew members were safe.“In accordance with international practice, and in line with humanitarian spirit, China has made arrangements for the US personnel. I’m confident they’re in a safe environment,” Zhu said.

The aircraft is a potential treasure trove of military intelligence for China.In Hong Kong, about 30 people chanted slogans outside the American consulate on Tuesday demanding that the United States apologise for the weekend collision.

China’s leading English-language state newspaper derided US explanations that the mid-air collision was an accident.

It drew parallels with the 1999 bombing of Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade by a US plane on a NATO bombing mission, which Washington says was a tragic mistake caused by the use of outdated MAPS.

A cartoon accompanying in the China Daily depicted the EP-3 spy plane at Lingshui airport with a speech bubble coming from the cockpit saying: “It might be due to another map error.”

The article said the incident revealed “US arrogance inmanaging bilateral relations”. And it lashed out at Washington for showing concern only for the return of the American plane and its crew and not for the the Chinese Pilot whose plane crashed.

“In Washington’s eyes, their citizens’ lives are more valuable than others,” it said.Xinhua on Tuesday reported the Chinese Pilot had parachuted from his plane and President Jiang Zemin had called for “utmost efforts” to find him.

Leading papers carried a protest over the incident from Assistant Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong relayed to the US ambassador to China on Sunday.