Sorry yet belligerent

Published : Apr 28, 2001 00:00 IST

The stand-off between the U.S. and China over the spy plane incident ends, but the hawkish response from sections of the Republican administration does little to assuage Chinese concerns over the continuing espionage missions.

THE tension that developed in Sino-U.S. relations following the mid-air collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese Air Force jet in the first week of April has eased considerably after President George W. Bush said "very sorry" to the Chinese government for the death of the Chinese pilot. The Chinese government considered this April 11 gesture as an "apology". Moreover, Washington specifically referred to the fact that the U.S. plane landed on Chinese territory without permission. The Bush administration also agreed to hold a meeting in April with the Chinese authorities to discuss the controversial issue of U.S. spy planes operating in the proximity of Chinese air space.

China has been demanding for some time that the U.S. halt its spy plane missions near Chinese air space. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had apologised to the Soviet Union after the downing of a U.S. U-2 spy plane and also stopped U-2 flights over Soviet territory. The U.S. military would not tolerate close surveillance of U.S. territory, although the U.S. claims the routine "right of espionage" over countries like China. Eisenhower himself had questioned in 1956 the need for offshore air reconnaissance as it had the potential to ignite international crises. The U.S. itself enforces a 320-km air intercept zone, far beyond its territorial waters. The accident that killed the Chinese pilot took place just about 130 km off China's Hainan coast.

The crew members of the spy plane were released on "humanitarian grounds" after Bush's statement. However, Washington once again reverted to its belligerent and hegemonistic tone as the crew landed on U.S. soil. Senior Bush administration officials insisted that no "apology" was given and that the Chinese pilot who died, was responsible for the accident. The hawkish U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that the Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, had flown into the propeller of the American EP-3 plane, causing the accident.

China was quick to deny the U.S. version. A spokesperson for its Foreign Ministry said that Washington had "ignored the facts and called black white". Chinese officials have reiterated that they have evidence to show that the EP-3 veered suddenly into the Chinese F-8, leading to its crash into the South China Sea.

The Bush administration is also demanding the immediate return of the state-of-the-art spy plane, which remains at the Hainan air base. Going by precedents, China can take its own time to return the plane, which entered its air space without permission. In the mid-1980s when a Soviet pilot defected with a Mig-27 jet to Japan, the U.S. kept the plane for months. The U.S. returned the plane after dismantling it completely. China may be well within its rights to take its own time and return the plane at a time of its choice.

An influential section of the Bush administration, comprising of cold warriors such as the Defence Secretary, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the new U.S. representative to the United Nations, Lawrence Eagleburger, has been urging retribution on Beijing for its alleged effrontery of asking for an apology and adopting a tough stance. Even as Secretary of State Colin Powell was engaged in delicate behind-the-scenes negotiations with China, the Vice-President went on record as saying that the U.S. would not apologise for the incident.

The anti-China lobby led by Cheney and Rumsfeld will try to use the spy plane incident to pursue their agenda. Rumsfeld has been one of the chief proponents of the National Missile Defence (NMD) and Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) systems, both of which would have an adverse impact on China's security. Meanwhile, the pro-Taiwan lobby in the U.S. Congress is using the spy plane incident as a pretext to press for the sale to Taiwan of warships with the sophisticated Aegis battle management radars. Beijing has been protesting against this move by arguing that giving Taiwan the Aegis system would be the first step towards the island's incorporation into the TMD system.

There are also veiled threats emerging from Washington about blocking China's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and undermining Beijing's chances to host the 2008 Olympics. The Bush administration has already adopted a strident tone on China's human rights record. The U.S. presented a resolution to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in the second week of March, accusing China of oppressing the Tibetan minority and the banned Falun Gong movement.

For the right wing in the U.S., in power after a gap of eight years, China is Enemy No.1. The Cox Committee Report of 1999 may have been a precursor. Christopher Cox, a Republican Congressman and an acolyte of former Speaker Newt Gingrich, was the Chairman of the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. In his report, Cox asserted that China had acquired nuclear parity with the U.S., when the fact was that China had about 20 old, liquid-fuelled, single-warhead intercontinental-range missiles. On the other hand, the U.S. has about 7,200 strategic warheads that could hit Chinese targets through the use of missiles, submarines and bombers. Cox also accused China of running a massive spy network in the U.S., using around 3,000 Chinese corporations as fronts. There were several other outrageous conclusions in the Cox report.

There are many lawmakers on Capitol Hill who seem to agree with the conclusions of the Cox report. They would like tensions to heighten so that they can intervene on the side of Taiwan. Any U.S. pledge to protect Taiwan is a commitment to prevent the island's reunification with China. From the Chinese point of view, this is a ploy to prevent the country from emerging as a major power. The Chinese leadership has made it clear that it will never play a subservient role, unlike Japan and South Korea, vis-a-vis Washington. While it is not against U.S. trade and investment in the country, it refuses to kowtow to U.S. unilateralism. China has valid reasons to be wary of the U.S. game plan in the region.

The Nye Report of 1995 (after Joseph Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defence and a Harvard Professor), which was reaffirmed by the Clinton administration in 1998, said that the U.S. intended to keep a force of 100,000 troops "forward deployed" in Japan and Korea for the next 20 years. Nye tried to argue that the reason for the forward deployment was the threat from North Korea. However, this argument had few takers.

The Chinese leadership has justifiably concluded that the massive U.S. presence in the neighbourhood is aimed at China. The U.S. and Japan signed a new military agreement in 1996, which gave the Japanese Army a more active role in the region and which went beyond the scope of the "peace constitution" adopted by Japan after the Second World War. In 1997 it was revealed that the U.S. administration was surveying more than 30 civilian and commercial ports in Japan that could be taken over in the event of an emergency or armed conflict "in the area surrounding Japan". The Japanese government, on the other hand, was going out of its way to convince China that it did not have any nefarious designs. The spy plane that was involved in the incident over the South China Sea had taken off from a U.S. air base in Okinawa.

TOKYO has been trying to distance itself from the whole episode. "Good Sino-U.S. relations are indispensable for the security of the Asia-Pacific region," said Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's top government spokesperson, after the incident. As things stand, Japanese public opinion seems to be against the U.S. The sinking of a Japanese trawler by a U.S. submarine in February and the unannounced call by a U.S. nuclear submarine at a Japanese port had inflamed public opinion. However, there seems to be an ingrained distrust of China among the current crop of Japanese policymakers. Washington hopes to exploit these feelings.

With China emerging as a dominant power in the region, Washington has been preparing the ground to continue playing the role of the sole arbiter of international events in the Pacific, at least for the foreseeable future. The spy plane incident has come in handy for the cold warriors who dominate the Bush administration. Other Asian countries in the region have reasons to be worried. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's senior Minister, has emphasised that stable U.S.-China relations are crucial to East Asia's economic recovery.

The fear is that the latest events could lead to the U.S. flexing its muscles in the South China Sea. Reports in the U.S. media suggest that the Bush administration has decided to dispatch the aircraft carrier "Kitty Hawk" to the South China Sea to protect U.S. surveillance flights operating in the area. China could respond by asserting its long-standing claim of sovereignty over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Chinese official maps have for long claimed the whole of South China Sea as China's territorial waters. Experts say that the latest incident is a "wake-up call". Although conflict between Washington and Beijing is not inevitable, small incidents have the potential to precipitate a larger crisis.

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