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American Morning
'TIME' Reporter Explains Why China Is Detaining Crew of Captured U.S. Plane
Aired April 06, 2001 - 10:34 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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: For perspective now on how the Chinese government is handling this standoff, we are joined by Michael Weisskopf, who is "TIME" magazine's senior Washington correspondent now, but he was "The Washington Post"'s correspondent in China for several years.
Mr. Weisskopf, thank you for joining us this morning.
MICHAEL WEISSKOPF, "TIME": It's a pleasure, Stephen.
FRAZIER: You've been there. You've spent a long time there. What do you think about the sensitivity of the government? Have they been handling this with the kind of sensitivity you saw while you were there?
WEISSKOPF: Certainly. After 52 years in power, the Communist Party of China has little more to lay claim to than nationalism. It did unify the country, all but Taiwan, and it has now, as its greatest lever, nationalism. And what you're seeing is that at play.
Within the ruling elite of China, however, there are factions. There are pro-American and anti-American factions, hard-line military forces, and also pro-trade and internationalist forces in the ruling elite. And it's the responsibility of the Chinese leadership, in the place of Jiang Zemin, the chairman of the Communist Party, to straddle those factions and to balance them, and he can't give in too easily to Bush in terms of responsibility, apology or a sense of regret.
What you'll see, however, is a kind of a testing by this government, of how far it can go in terms of extracting itself from this crisis with the Chinese.
FRAZIER: Would you say that Jiang Zemin is feeling any pressure from his military. Some people have been telling us that the military tries to exploit international tensions as much as it can, to gain on its own political agenda internally, especially because they have not responded very rapidly to calls for change, not only within the military, but within those industries that are associated with the military.
WEISSKOPF: The most entrenched hard-line forces are within the military. The generals are very unhappy with the way Jiang Zemin responded to the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last year. As a result, he looked weak in their eyes and has had to placate the military, in terms of increasing military budgets and in terms of saber rattling, as we see now. Much of the kind of bravado Jiang Zemin is showing here is a play to that military faction.
FRAZIER: You heard the father of one of the crew members say just a few minutes ago to Daryn that he believes that an apology might not be all China is after. Do you have a sense that they might ask for other things in addition to that?
WEISSKOPF: When you deal with the Chinese, face is, of course, the opening gambit. However, for the Chinese, a little bit a concession, such as an expression of regret by Secretary Powell and President Bush, could be just a beginning in an effort to extract more concessions. There's a great deal more China could ask for, in terms of reparations or in terms of agreements on future surveillance of the Chinese coast.
FRAZIER: We've had an awful lot of talk on our Web site from people who wonder if it's a coincidence that this accident occurred just a month before pending sales of arms to Taiwan.
WEISSKOPF: Well, it would be quite a bit of serendipity to assume that this was a planned event, but sometimes history kind of cheats us in terms of fate, and things do happen like this out of circumstance.
FRAZIER: And let's make the most of it is what they were implying, that the Chinese might look for concessions on those sales, as well as other things.
WEISSKOPF: Of course. And this gives President Bush an opportunity to search, among the large array of weapons that he's considering for Taiwan, to pick an option that may be less threatening to Peking.
FRAZIER: One last question as we leave you, Michael Weisskopf: Do you think that the Chinese understand the American position as badly as we understand theirs?
WEISSKOPF: When I got to China in 1980, they were just at the start of understanding our system and were pretty ham handed. Since then, they've sent tens of thousands of students to the United States, some of them returning to positions of leadership. They have active trade and representation in this country. I think they probably have a pretty good understanding of the dynamic of Congress and the White House and the role of our military in decision making.
FRAZIER: Michael Weisskopf, joining us from Washington this morning, thank you very much.
WEISSKOPF: My pleasure.
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