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CNN Saturday Morning News
Diplomacy Between U.S., China Remains Intense
Aired April 07, 2001 - 07:01 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with the spy plane standoff that's been simmering on the diplomatic hot plate for nearly a week. Officials say Washington and Beijing are working on a joint statement, even as differences remain over what caused the collision over the South China Sea.
Both sides want to save face, but the precise wording is proving to be difficult.
For the latest now, here's John King, our senior White House correspondent. Good night -- good -- hello, John.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Kyra.
Well, optimism from U.S. officials heading into the weekend of diplomacy, some senior U.S. officials even saying that perhaps this standoff would be over by the weekend. But this morning, more indications that China is as yet unsatisfied with the U.S. response to all this. We're told China's vice premier, who's the top foreign policy official, has sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell saying a U.S. apology is, quote, "extremely important" to bring an end to this matter.
And also word today that the missing pilot's wife, the Chinese fighter pilot who was lost in the collision, his wife has sent a letter to President Bush as well. Let's read in part from that letter. It says, quote, "In this serious matter with irrefutable facts and the responsibility completely resting on the U.S. side, you are too cowardly to voice an apology and have been trying to shirk your responsibility repeatedly and defame my husband groundlessly."
So the rhetoric from the Chinese side, perhaps at least for now, in public anyway, laying question to the U.S. claims of progress in this diplomacy. But we are told the talks continue. The president monitoring developments from Camp David this weekend.
One of his challenges now, though, as this standoff approaches the one-week mark, is to deal with U.S. public opinion. There's a growing sense here at the White House that the American people will grow impatient as this drags on, and perhaps not just impatient with the Chinese but impatient with the president as well.
So the president in every public statement he makes now trying to make clear to the American people that those 24 crew members are doing quite well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're housed in officers' quarters, and they are being treated well. We're proud of these young men and women who are upholding the high standards of our armed forces. We know this is a difficult time for their families, and I thank them for their patriotism and their patience.
We're working hard to bring them home through intensive discussions with the Chinese government. And we think we're making progress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: A third meeting with those 24 crew members planned today. U.S. diplomats on the scene will visit them. We're told they're also likely to bring along messages from their family members to the crew members.
U.S. officials saying they view it as a positive development that they believe they will now have daily access to the crew members. On the one hand that's a positive development, on the other hand, some suggesting that perhaps it also shows that their release is not imminent -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: John, can we talk about the issue of an apology for a minute? How much is the culture playing a part here? Because it seems moral superiority is taking part in this whole situation.
KING: Certainly on the Chinese side, there has been a consistent call for an apology. And in the Chinese state-run media, all the blame for this has been assigned to the United States. And that, essentially, is the dividing line that the diplomats concede poses quite a problem. Can they resolve this behind the scenes? Could there be a joint statement that does not address the issue of an apology that resolves this?
Ultimately, U.S. officials say they believe that is so. But U.S. officials also say that they will not apologize. They say they have shown the Chinese government radar data that proves that this accident, this -- as the U.S. side calls it, took place in international air space and that the Chinese planes flew dangerously close to that U.S. surveillance flight.
PHILLIPS: John King, live from the White House, thanks.
Well, an agreement signed by the Clinton administration is giving President Bush the framework for a possible resolution of the spy plane standoff with China. It's called the Military Maritime Safety Agreement, and State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel has those details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From Washington to Beijing and back again, diplomatic discussions to end the standoff kicked into high gear.
COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm encouraged because there has been movement and because we are exchanging rather precise ideas as to how to bring this to a conclusion.
KOPPEL: Among ideas under consideration, using a little-known U.S.-China Military Maritime Safety Agreement signed in 1998 by the Clinton administration as a way to exchange explanations as to what happened during last week's midair collision.
The agreement itself calls for "annual meetings" and provides a "stable channel" for consultations on incidents in the air and at sea in a "spirit of mutual respect." U.S. lawmakers briefed by the administration offered details.
SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: And that framework will enable the experts, those who are most knowledgeable about aircraft and other matters, to sit down and assess the facts.
KOPPEL: In addition, officials say, this commission could also address Chinese concerns about future U.S. surveillance flights.
DEREK MITCHELL, STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: There are going to be intersections and potential misinterpretations, miscalculations. So something like this is reasonable and probably about time.
KOPPEL: State Department officials say diplomats have been working literally around the clock to find, quote, "the right words" for an official statement acceptable to both sides to break the impasse.
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I would basically expect us, from the U.S. side, including the people in Washington and the secretary, to be working this 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as long as we're still seeing our crew members detained.
KOPPEL (on camera): State Department officials are reluctant to say when they'll reach a final agreement, concerned there could be a last-minute glitch. But in the words of one State Department source, quote, "We're farther along today than we were yesterday," a sign they're getting close.
Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: The Beijing government may get a technological windfall from the U.S. spy plane, and it's also trying to maintain the diplomatic upper hand in the negotiations for the release of the plane's 24 crew members.
CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver joins us now from videophone from Hainan, China, with the latest. Hi, Lisa.
LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Kyra. It's been a long day of waiting here in Hainan. U.S. officials are waiting for word that the third face-to-face meeting with the 24 crew members could begin, but so far they haven't had it. The priority, of course, is to press for the release of the 24 crew members now in Chinese custody for nearly a week, since the emergency landing last Sunday.
We are assured through the U.S. officials that they remain in good health. Of course, they saw them last night, met with them face to face. They are getting provisions. U.S. officials here are buying things for them that they need. Chinese officials are then taking them to them, we understand.
We don't know, in the last two meetings and in the one that may happen tonight or at some point in the future, if the airplane -- if the issue of the airplane is going to come up. Now, that aircraft, it remains on the Lin Shui (ph) airfield in the south part of the island. From a closeup photograph, one can see quite a lot of damage to the plane, apparently sustained in the process of making that emergency landing.
But the focus of attention is really now here in Haikou, the provincial capital, where U.S. officials are trying very hard now to secure the release of the 24 Americans -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Lisa Rose Weaver, thank you so much.
How the spy plane incident has put Beijing and Washington at a diplomatic crossroad, and a wrong turn could sour relations between the two superpowers for many years. Both sides are proceeding cautiously.
For the latest from the China capital, here's Rebecca MacKinnon, our Beijing bureau chief. Hi, Rebecca.
REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Hello, Kyra. Well, the latest here is that just a couple hours ago, the state-run news agency released the text of a letter from Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it he said that U.S. statements to date are unacceptable. He continued on to say, "It's essential for the U.S. side to face up to the facts squarely, adopt a positive and practical approach, and apologize to the Chinese people." He indicated that progress -- further progress required an apology.
Now, at the same time, diplomacy continues here in Beijing. The U.S. ambassador to China, Joseph Prueher, has been in and out of meetings all day with the foreign ministry, and even though the U.S. has said that it cannot give an apology to China, it does appear that in private, the Chinese diplomats who are talking to him are still making the U.S. diplomats feel hopeful that some kind of solution may be reached -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Rebecca MacKinnon, thanks for the latest from there. And CNN senior Asian correspondent Mike Chinoy has spent many years covering U.S.-Chinese relations. He joins us now from Hong Kong to put the latest incident into perspective.
Mike, let's talk a minute about the Chinese stance of an apology here. How much does culture play a part in this? And I was asking John King this earlier on, and this moral superiority that seems to be playing a part in all of this.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIAN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.
Well, it's partly culture, and the question of face, and also it's traditional practice in China if somebody, for example, is taken to court, that there's tremendous pressure to confess their crimes and then ask for leniency and often to confess before there's been a trial.
But my sense is that this is really as much about internal politics in China as anything else. And there are clear signs that the government and particularly has come under pressure from hardliners in the military and appears determined to use this episode to show that it will hang tough with the United States, to test the Bush administration, and that the repetition by Vice Premier Qian Qichen of the demand for an apology certainly is a different kind of tone than what we've been hearing coming out of Washington, where it's all been very upbeat.
You add to that the rather emotional kind of material that's being carried in the Chinese press, reports about the wife and parents of the downed flyer, and it may well be that the Chinese are digging in their heels on this question of an apology and are really going to wait and see if they can wrench one out of the Bush administration to test just how hard the Bush administration really is when it comes to the crunch -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So Mike, where does this leave us now? I mean, do you think a compromise can be made, finding a word maybe in between "apology" and "regret"?
CHINOY: Well, that's what diplomats are paid to do.
One interesting idea that some former U.S. diplomats and academic analysts that I've been speaking with has come up with is that if it -- if the U.S. becomes convinced that some kind of apology in some form is the only way to get the crew out, that they will look for a very, narrowly focused apology, an apology on the issue, for example, of the plane making an unauthorized landing into China, because the emergency circumstances didn't allow it to go through the proper procedures, but not an apology over what the plane was doing or an apology that admits any kind of culpability for the collision.
That's speculative, but the fact that some serious people are looking about that suggests that it may not be quite as easy as it was appearing in the last day or so -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Mike Chinoy, live from Hong Kong, our senior Asian correspondent, also an author on China relations. Thanks, Mike.
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