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Chinese Spin to Promote Positive Sentiment

Aired April 11, 2001 - 09:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN: Welcome back to CNN LIVE THIS MORNING. I'm Daryn Kagan.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Stephen Frazier. As we told you, we'll have a live report from the New York Stock Exchange in about 15 minutes.

First, though, we'd like to update our top story: China says it will release the 24 U.S. servicemen and women being held on Hainan Island. Details of their release are still being worked out at this hour, but the U.S. ambassador in Beijing says he has been assured the crew will be permitted to leave promptly.

We get more on China's decision now from senior Asian correspondent, Mike Chinoy, who's talking to us from Hong Kong today.

Mike, good morning.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN BUREAU CHIEF, HONG KONG: Good morning, Stephen. Well. the Chinese have already begun to spin this in such a way as to convince their own people that Beijing got what it has been demanding for a week, even though the United States clearly did not make the kind of formal apology that took responsibility and blame for the midair collision that precipitated the crisis.

The Chinese are telling their people that the U.S. did express sorrow and regret, and focused very heavily on the arrival of the plane at Hainan Airport, which undeniably was done without the formal procedures being applied, and that's why the U.S. was able to apologize without admitting any kind of guilt for that.

Interestingly, the "People's Daily," the Chinese communist party's newspaper, has an editorial that is scheduled to come out on Thursday. And in that editorial, it urges the people to turn their patriotic passion towards economic development, and to rally around the Communist party leadership, with President Jiang Zemin at its core.

The Beijing government will undoubtedly be nervous that the final resolution of this is not what China has consistently demanded, which was that all-out apology. That's what the Chinese have been saying publicly all along. And so they're trying to convey the message that China did in fact get something out of this, even though it fell far short of what Beijing had been asking all along -- Stephen. FRAZIER: Mike, that last thing you mentioned is very interesting. So they'd like to convert the nationalism that has been whipped up by this incident into a sort of economic nationalism?

CHINOY: Well, there's a lot of nationalistic feeling and it has been stoked deliberately by the government-controlled press in recent days as part of China's negotiating strategy to pressure the United States. But there were reports that on many, many campuses around the country, students had applied for permission to hold anti-American demonstrations. Chinese Internet chat rooms were full of very angry anti-American rhetoric, and so there's a lot of feeling there.

And this government has to be somewhat concerned that if the perception begins to seep into the Chinese population that even though President Jiang Zemin demanded a full abject U.S. apology, he didn't get it. The government itself could come in for some criticism. And so the appeal in the "People's Daily" is for people to turn their anger and channel it towards building up a stronger China, rather than criticizing the government for not getting full concessions from Washington.

FRAZIER: Wonderful insight. In Hong Kong, our senior Asian correspondent, Mike Chinoy. Mike, thank you.

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