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CNN Sunday Morning

U.S.-China Standoff Enters Seventh Day

Aired April 08, 2001 - 08:01   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.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Let's begin in China. It has now been a week since a midair collision over the South China Sea caused a Navy plane to -- a spy plane, that is -- to make an emergency landing on Chinese soil. And it may take more than just an apology to secure the crew's release.

As a possible condition to end this stand-off, China may now insist on a pledge from the U.S. not to conduct any further surveillance flights off the Chinese coast. And we get more now on what Chinese officials are saying from CNN's Beijing bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIGADIER GENERAL NEAL SEALOCK, U.S. DEFENSE ATTACHE: The air crew is well and they're doing fine. We're hoping to get them out of here before too long.

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): But just when will these three women and 21 men be able to go home? The U.S. ambassador had little information.

JOSEPH PRUEHER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: Everybody is working as hard as they can on trying to find an acceptable solution and I think anything more than that I might say would be counterproductive right now.

MACKINNON: But public signals sent through the state-controlled media suggested that China's stance could be hardening. Meeting with the wife of missing pilot Wang Wei, Defense Minister Chi Haotian said, "The Chinese armed forces and people will not accept it if the U.S. government attempts to evade its responsibility."

Members of different Chinese armed services were shown denouncing the U.S. for its hegemonic behavior. Chinese rhetoric contrasts sharply with optimistic comments made by U.S. officials in Washington who have been dealing most directly with China's foreign ministry.

WANG XIAODONG, POLITICAL ANALYST: As in any country, China's foreign ministry tends to want to resolve this kind of issue peacefully. But other parts of the government may hold different views.

RICHARD BAUM, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY: This, then, introduces another set of actors in Chinese politics and that is the People's Liberation Army. No one can rule China without the support of the army.

MACKINNON: Traditionally, the People's Liberation Army has held a more hawkish view toward China's relations with the U.S. President Jiang Zemin, now in Argentina, has been silent on the issue for several days now. Observers point out that Chinese decision-making under Jiang has changed since George W. Bush's father was president, let alone when Nixon first met Mao.

BLUM: China was as opaque then as it is now, but there was a single leader who made all the decisions, or at least the important ones. But now we do have a kind of corporate management board and the process is so opaque that we can't see how the decisions are made.

MACKINNON: Observers say there are two theories about what could be going on right now. One is that the military is pushing for a harder line. The other is that the leadership is letting the military rattle its sabers and let off steam before a deal is made.

Rebecca MacKinnon, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. embassy personnel in China are lobbying for greater access to the Navy crew. More now on what's happening on Hainan Island, where it's now eight o'clock in the evening.

CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver joins us again by video phone -- hi, Lisa.

LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.

Yes, it's been a long day for U.S. officials here in Hainan. They have, they are pushing for their fourth face to face meeting in which they hope to meet the 24 air crew members again for the fourth time. But it's been a full day of waiting. So far the word from Chinese officials that such a meeting could begin has not come.

Now, earlier today, the head of the U.S. delegation, Brigadier General Neal Sealock, said that he was confident that the air crew are doing well, they were happy. They had received e-mail messages, printed copies of e-mail messages from friends and family, some reading materials. They even chatted at the previous meeting about ports, information that they can't get at this point any other way.

Now, General Sealock also mentioned that he and his team want to meet with the crew in the future twice a day and that they want unfettered access. He didn't spell out exactly what that means, but in the past U.S. officials have had to sit down with Chinese officials for up to a couple of hours before they can meet face to face with the Americans and as well during the last meeting it was possible for the Americans to sit down with the air crew members without Chinese officials present.

Now, it's not clear whether those conditions will prevail for the next meeting, for which they are still on standby -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Lisa Weaver, thank you very much.

And in contrast to the hard-line from China, the Bush administration continues sounding upbeat about negotiations to end the stalemate and bring the Navy crew home.

Well, one can't help but wonder whether patience within the White House is wearing thin.

CNN's Major Garrett joins us from the White House with a sense of what's happening there -- hi, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra. Good morning.

Well, the sense here at the White House is, again, clinging to that sense of optimism, although it is a bit guarded, White House officials saying the negotiations continue and apparent access to the 24 crew members will be regular. Those are considered positive signs overall. And there will be a battery of administration officials appearing on the Sunday talk shows to give the latest perspective from the White House, among them Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Cheney. And the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, will be appearing later today on CNN on "LATE EDITION" -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Major, the White House, of course, still negotiating the return of these 24 crew members. Now there's this helicopter crash in Vietnam. Have they come out and said anything about this and how are they dealing with this situation?

GARRETT: Well, they're dealing with it as a situation to be mourned, mourned very deeply here at the White House. The president and the first lady issued a statement yesterday talking about the loss of lives, in part reading, "The families of the service personnel lost in today's tragic accident" -- that's a reference to yesterday's accident in Vietnam -- "know better than most the contribution their loved ones made in bringing closure to scores of families across America. Today's loss is a terrible one for our nation."

That loss referring to the service personnel lost as a part of a mission undertaken by task force in Vietnam that deals with trying to find the remains and excavate the remains of those service personnel listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Major, I remember that you were back there with the president in Vietnam and you got to see these missions take place firsthand. How did that impact you? What do you remember from your trip?

GARRETT: It was a very vivid day, among the most vivid days I've ever spent as a journalist, Kyra. We were about 20 miles outside of Hanoi in Vietnam. President Clinton was there. We were at an excavation site where literally there were three members of this task force there and about 40 other Vietnamese women and they would carry out small bricks of mud, maybe about the size of a regular brick of a house.

And the mud was clay and very thick. And they would have to soak it in water overnight and then push it through screens. And the whole process was meant to try to find some bit or piece of a plane, in this case, a fighter pilot plane that had crashed there in 1969. And possibly, then, some biological remains of a fighter pilot lost and missing in action.

We met the two brothers who came there to the excavation site. They were overwhelmed with emotion, not only about what the U.S. service personnel were doing, but what the Vietnamese people were doing. And it's so important to recognize that this is a joint operation between the Vietnamese and the U.S. to try to find these missing Americans.

There are some 1,800 still listed as Missing in Action from that war and the Vietnamese and the U.S. service personnel worked side by side one at a time, site by site, trying to find and recover the remains of these service personnel enclosed wounds that have lasted, for some cases, almost 30 years from many U.S. American families.

So it was a very, very vivid experience for me as a journalist, one that made me very aware of how much pride the service personnel involved in these excavation and recovery operations take in their mission.

PHILLIPS: Major Garrett, thanks for the personal touch this morning.

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