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American Morning

Chinese Fighter Pilot Gives Account of Collision

Aired April 06, 2001 - 09:01   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, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to get right to it now and begin with the rapidly changing developments in the standoff between the U.S. and China.

The U.S. Embassy now says that a meeting between U.S. diplomats and the crew of the crippled Navy spy plane is under way. That after an unexplained delay. There have been conflicting reports this morning on the status of that meeting.

Also, we have the first pictures of the crew in custody.

And we hear the pilot of the second Chinese fighter jet give his account of the collision that triggered the standoff.

Let's start now with our Beijing bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon. She is joining us by phone with where things stand at this very minute -- Rebecca, hello.

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Hello, Daryn.

Well, after a delay of nearly five hours, U.S. diplomats in Hainan are finally meeting with the 24 U.S. air crewmembers who've been held now since Sunday. This is only the second meeting they've been able to have. The first one was on Tuesday night local time.

It's unclear how long the meeting will go on. It's unclear what the circumstances are of the meeting, although we do know that General Sealock and a couple of other members of his group of diplomats are still meeting with the crew, and some others have already returned to the hotel.

So it's a small group of diplomats meeting with the crew. We do not know if it is a supervised meeting or an unsupervised meeting.

We do not know either why the meeting was delayed for so long, nearly five hours. In fact, the delay was so extreme that the United States Embassy here just about a half an hour before the meeting actually started issued a statement to reporters outside the embassy expressing frustration that the meeting had not yet happened, contrary to what they had been told by the Chinese foreign ministry, that it was going to happen at 4:00 in the afternoon local time.

It didn't get underway until about 8:40 in the evening. We don't know why this is. Meanwhile, it remains very unclear what the next step is going to be, when the crew might be released, under what circumstances, what kind of deal is going to have to be made between the United States diplomats and Chinese diplomats before the Chinese feel that their demands have been satisfied enough to let the crew go.

Now it's -- it's interesting the expression of regret by U.S. President Bush for the loss of the Chinese fighter pilot Wang Wei has not yet been reported in the Chinese media. The expression of regret by Secretary of State Colin Powell, however, has been.

There is no -- there has not been any official comment either on the statement by President Bush, although the foreign ministry said that Powell's comment had been a step in the right direction, and Chinese media continues to focus on the fate of the pilot Wang Wei, putting on pictures of his weeping family members tonight on national television, and we got to hear for the first time from other Chinese fighter pilot.

There had been two planes tailing the U.S. surveillance plane at the time, and the second one, Zhao Yu, did make it back safely, and here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZHAO YU, FIGHTER PILOT: On April 1, Wang Wei and I were on duty. At about 8:45 a.m., we took off to conduct our routine tracking mission in the airspace southeast of Hainan Island.

Seven minutes after takeoff, we found a large plane to our left 50 kilometers ahead of us. Wang Wei and I approached the plane and identified it as a U.S. EP-3-type surveillance plane. When the U.S. spy plane spotted it, it adjusted its navigation course. So we adjusted ours accordingly.

At 9:05 a.m., the U.S. plane readjusted it course to 110 degrees. We readjusted ours once again so that we were flying at the same speed and the same direction as the U.S. spy plane. Our planes were on the inner side of Hainan, and the U.S. plane was on the outer side.

Two minutes later, the U.S. plane suddenly swerved at a wide angle toward our direction and collided over the plane Wang Wei was flying. I saw the nose and left wing of the U.S. plane bump into Wang Wei's plane, and the left outer propeller of the U.S. plane's left wing smashed the vertical tail surface of Wang Wei's plane.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Who do you think is responsible for this collision incident?

ZHAO YU: The U.S. side is fully responsible for this collision. It was directly caused by the collision of the U.S. plane veering at a wide angle toward our plane, making it impossible for our plane to avoid it. The U.S. plane violated flying rules, so they should hold full responsibility.

It is our duty to identify any mid-air objects that would endanger our national security and to track them. As Wang Wei's comrade in arms on the same mission, I am especially worried for his safety. I hope our rescue efforts will bring him back to us. I am very grateful for the government's and the Navy's concern over his safety.

I am indignant at the action of the U.S. spy plane crashing our plane right at our doorsteps.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACKINNON: Well, the mood on the streets here in Beijing very much reflects that indignance. People saying that they -- they are very upset with the United States for having allowed its plane to do what it did, and there's very little sympathy towards the United States crew -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Rebecca MacKinnon with the latest in Beijing. Thank you. We'll be back in touch with you throughout the morning -- Stephen.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Daryn, with all that in mind, diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff are now described as intense, with officials meeting on several fronts now.

Joining us with the latest on all those fronts, CNN State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel -- Andrea, good morning.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Stephen.

Well, as of now, there are no meetings scheduled for -- for here at the State Department with China's ambassador to the United States, but you can bet that State Department officials will be looking at that meeting in Hainan Island that's going on right now, looking to see the following. If they'll have unfettered access. That means unrestricted access.

The first time they met earlier this week, U.S. diplomats said that there Chinese officials present, that they were restricted as to what subjects they could discuss -- they were sort of limited to the plane, the crewmembers' health, and how they were doing in general -- but that they couldn't talk about the incident itself.

And, thirdly, they'll look for length of the meeting. The last time, it only 40 minutes. It was the first meeting. They had 24 crewmembers to talk to.

So they see the meeting in general, of course, as a positive sign. They're hoping to hear more from the crew, and, in fact, just listening to that Chinese pilot there give the Chinese side of the story, that's been one of the main arguments, if you will, that U.S. officials have been giving the Chinese government. They need to have more time to talk to U.S. crewmembers to hear their side of the story. They've been going by that first contact that they heard when the crew landed on Hainan Island, made that emergency landing as to what, in fact, had happened in that mid-air collision. And so, Stephen, U.S. officials feel that there is some progress being made. In fact, they point to another day of meetings in Beijing, another full day of meetings as a sign that the conversation, the dialogue is continuing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH PRUEHER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: We're having meetings here with the appropriate Chinese authorities. We are in fairly intense talks that are going on, and we're all working very hard and hoping to do it constructively, and -- and I would like to say that it's -- it's quite well coordinated with our government in Washington. We're in close touch with them, with our -- with our leaders, the president, and Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage, and the -- they are coordinating in Washington, and we're -- we're working in sync.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: All a part of this rolling, round-the-clock, diplomatic dialogue that's been taking place 12 hours in China, 12 hours here in the United States, and a lot of all-night phone calls -- Stephen.

FRAZIER: Andrea, are you getting any sense of the reaction there at the State Department or among any of our diplomatic core to the fact that President Bush's expression of regret, as we were told by Rebecca MacKinnon, has not been made public to the Chinese people yet? What would that signify?

KOPPEL: Well, certainly, if they had made it public, that would have been another indication that the Chinese government was trying to de-escalate some of the tension to sort of make their case that the U.S. government has sufficiently expressed its regret and, of course, they want an outright apology, but they're not going to get it, according to the Bush administration.

But to -- to try to lay the groundwork for bringing about a quick end to this standoff right now, Stephen. So the fact that they haven't released President Bush's expressions of regret to the public doesn't -- doesn't -- doesn't bode very well, but it doesn't mean certainly that the path isn't being laid by the Chinese government to bring this to an end at some point in the near future.

FRAZIER: Understood. Another long day of watching for you. Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Andrea, thank you -- Daryn.

KAGAN: The news of the second meeting between U.S. officials and the 24 crewmembers was a welcome development at the White House today.

For the latest on the Bush administration's efforts to end the standoff, let's check in with CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett -- Major, good morning.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Yes, a welcome development, but I must tell you, it's been a somewhat fluid and confusing hour here at the White House.

Last hour, I was able to report to you administration reaction from a senior official describing that the administration thought it was very much a positive step forward that the meeting was taking place. Then came the word from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that the meeting had not yet occurred. Now the meeting has occurred.

So many of the administration responses to CNN's questions are still valid, just in a slightly different context. They were made three or four hours ago. They still stand, but the administration does feel things are so fluid, so confusing in Beijing and in Hainan right now that they're trying to scramble and sift through information as it comes to them.

And it's worth pointing out that this Bush White House is somewhat at the mercy of the information that it receives first from its diplomatic core in Beijing and in Hainan, and as the last hour has clearly indicated, that information somewhat -- at times comes in a somewhat confusing package.

Let me read to you a statement a senior administration official gave to CNN a couple of hours ago. "The fact that this meeting is taking place is a sign that things are moving forward."

When I asked that senior administration official just how far forward things are moving, the administration official did not want to comment, saying, "Let's listen to facts of this meeting, and then we'll make an assessment after that."

That was clearly a wise bit of caution on that administration official's part because three and a half hours ago, the meeting, which they thought was happening, wasn't, in fact, occurring, but the administration believe generally speaking that it is reaping the fruits of that expression of regret from President Bush yesterday, that high-level contacts are going on but, as today's events and the last hours' events have clearly indicated, on a choppy footing -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Major, it also appears to be reaping the benefits of keeping a cool head at the White House. What about word that President Bush has spread that word among administration and people representing him to say, you know, "Let's keep the rhetoric toned down so that we don't heighten the tension even more than it has to be."

GARRETT: That's true. Throughout the administration, keep the rhetoric down to a minimum, do nothing that would inflame the situation, let's try to resolve this in as diplomatic a way as possible, but that -- that message is not just being spread here at the White House.

The White House has made it very clear to members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, that they encourage them not to say anything inflammatory, not to turn up the heat on China in Congress. Now some Republicans have not heeded that, but most Republicans and all Democrats certainly have, and there are several congressional delegations that were planning trips to China during this upcoming two-week congressional recess, which begins tomorrow.

Now the administration has not discouraged any of those congressional delegations from canceling -- to canceling trips. They said, "If you want to go, go ahead. We're not going to give you any official word you should not go." Many congressional delegations that were planning the trips to China have, in fact, canceled them or at least delayed them until they find out what happens today and tomorrow to the fate of U.S. crew, but that's a decision those members of Congress are making individually. They're not taking cues not to go from this White House.

KAGAN: Major Garrett at the White House. Major, thank you.

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