Thursday, April 5, 2001

By Sandra Jontz, Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — The ongoing standoff between the United States and China continued Wednesday, with U.S. leaders refusing to apologize for a Navy spy plane’s emergency landing at a Chinese military base, and Beijing refusing to release the 24 U.S. crewmembers and the plane.

Secretary of State Colin Powell extended a truncated olive branch Wednesday, expressing his regret but saying things must progress.

"We regret that the Chinese plane did not get down safely. We regret the loss of the life of that Chinese pilot, but now we need to move on," Powell said. "We need to bring this to a resolution. We’re using every avenue available to us to talk to the Chinese side to exchange explanations and move on."

Although the Chinese government is demanding the apology, President Bush won’t concede, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

"The accident took place in international air space and the United States did nothing wrong," Fleischer said.

Despite Bush’s warning Tuesday to the Chinese government, and a meeting between the U.S. State Department and Chinese officials, the crew of the downed military spy plane continued to wait for its release.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. officials filed the required formal requests for additional meetings with the crew, and that Chinese officials have yet to respond. No additional meetings had been scheduled as of Wednesday.

Bush issued a brief yet stern statement Tuesday, and so far has no plans for continuing public dialogue.

"The president’s goal is to make certain that our servicemembers are allowed to come and be with their families and be reunited and reenter the shores of the United States," Fleischer said.

"Because of this sensitive diplomacy, there are times in international relations where the less said is the most productive, and that is the president’s focus, being productive."

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met Tuesday with Chinese Ambassador to the United States Yang Jiechi for roughly 30 minutes and reiterated Bush’s admonition that the Chinese government’s failure to promptly return the crew and the Navy plane could hurt U.S.-Chinese relations, said State Department spokesman Ken Bailes.

U.S. Defense attaché members met Tuesday with the entire EP-3E Aries II crew in Haikou, the provincial capital of Hainan, a Chinese resort island. The capital is a four- or five-hour drive from Ling Shui, the city where the distressed Navy plane made its emergency landing on a Chinese military airfield, said Cmdr. Rex Totty, a spokesman with the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.

No U.S. official or crewmember from the downed EP-3E remained with the plane, which Chinese officials reportedly pillaged after Chinese soldiers held the crewmembers at gunpoint and escorted them away from the aircraft, Totty said.

Attaché leader Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock reported to Bush that the crew was safe and well cared for by the Chinese, the president told the nation Tuesday at a short press briefing.

Other than the crew’s safety, the Pentagon’s biggest concern is the secret and sensitive technological information aboard the plane.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Tuesday the military has procedures to destroy such information, but did not know what, if anything, the crew managed to destroy in the 20 minutes between the attack and the emergency landing.

Since the incident Sunday, Beijing officials have sought an apology from the United States, an act the American government refuses to concede.

The Navy’s official position is that the EP-3E, on a routine and overt reconnaissance mission in international waters, was attacked by two Chinese fighter planes.

One plane collided with the slow-moving American plane and damaged it, forcing the pilot to call out a mayday and make an emergency landing on Hainan.

Meanwhile, across the United States on Wednesday, the families of some crewmembers anxiously awaited possible phone calls from their loved ones held in China after U.S. officials told them the Chinese government might let the crew call home.

Yet others hadn’t heard a thing.

"We’re hopeful and hoping to hear from him this morning," said Kevin Funk, father of Petty Officer 2nd Class Brandon Funk, a cryptologic technician interpreter from Showlow, Ariz.

"They’re saying it’s possible they may let the crewmembers call home. In that case, I don’t want to tie up the line," said Funk, adding he was apprehensive about speaking with the media and refrained from commenting further until the detainees returned home.

While the Funks and others waited, family members like Bill Osborn and Richard Bensing yearned for any snippet of official information.

"We haven’t heard anything more than what is on the news, and we’re very much concerned," said Osborn, great-uncle to 26-year-old Lt. Shane Osborn of Norfolk, Neb.

No one from the U.S. government has told his family to wait by the telephone.

"If that’s the privilege the crew is getting, we haven’t heard anything about that," Osborn said.

He had heard television newscast reporting the Chinese government already had let the crew deliver short messages to a parent or spouse, but his family had yet to hear from Shane.

But Bill Osborn said the family is neither aggravated nor angered.

"We think this is being handled as well as it can be [by the U.S. government] under the circumstances," he said, speaking for the family.

To the Chinese government, Richard Bensing has three words.

"Send him home," Bensing said of his grandson and namesake, Ensign Richard Bensing.

"I’m not angry, but this is confusing to say the least," the Florida resident said. "We don’t have any information except he’s over there, and this is an ugly situation. I think he’s being held hostage."

RELATED STORIES:
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          Incident may be defining moment in U.S.-China relationship
          Sensitive data may have been destroyed, but plane has political value
          Military pilots say reconnaissance plane wouldn't fly into fighter's path
          In China, there's little doubt that U.S. plane was at fault
          Republicans divided over approach to take with China
          Like his predecessors, Bush sees domestic agenda taking a back seat
          Bush taking low-key, hands-on approach to first foreign-policy crisis
          Analysts say China's inexperience at this game may have been a factor
          Life on a spy plane can go from boredom to terror in an instant
          On the Internet, EP-3 veterans express their concerns
          Okinawa servicemembers weigh in on China incident

ON THE NET:
          DOD says aircraft not a "spy plane"
          Tuesday's Pentagon press briefing         
          EP-3E Aries II squadron
          Pacific Command

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