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CNN Saturday Morning News

Experts Answer Questions on U.S.-China Conflict

Aired April 14, 2001 - 09:37   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: Well, you can imagine we're getting lots of e-mails and questions about this. Miles is over at our Smart Screen to talk about that and answer your questions -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, thank you very much. We got a lot of e-mails today. As a matter of fact, we asked folks if they'd prefer to talk about China or Cincinnati, and by far and away, China relations were the issue, the homecoming of the crew of the Navy spy plane.

Now, to take some of those questions, joining us from Washington is Nicholas Lardy. He's a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace is in Crawford, Texas, where the president is spending the holiday weekend. And CNN's Martin Savidge joining us from Pearl Harbor, where crew members spent a couple of days in briefings.

Let's get right to the e-mail, quite a bit of it.

Bill in Bama has this, "The Chinese say our pictures prove nothing. They say they have absolute proof of what happened. Could we get embarrassed at next Wednesday's meeting with film footage of the actual collision?"

Mr. Lardy, what do you think? Presumably the tapes were rolling during this incident. Why haven't we seen that tape?

NICHOLAS LARDY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, I quite frankly think it's very unlikely that the Chinese story is going to be corroborated. I think what the Chinese have been going on mostly is the view of their second pilot, and from a half a mile behind or so, he may have seen the plane banking sharply after it was hit. He probably couldn't see the collision itself, so he may have had the impression that the collision was caused by the banking, whereas in fact the banking of the aircraft and the fall was after the collision had occurred.

I think once all the facts are out, it's almost certain the U.S. version of this is going to be borne out.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get this one in from Eric Eastep, "What is the possibility of Chinese investigating officials tampering with evidence? Is this an issue that the U.S. will likely research? And lastly, when is the U.S. expecting its plane back?" Kelly Wallace, why don't you take that one?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, definitely topping the agenda going into this Wednesday meeting, U.S. officials say, will be discussing plans for the prompt return of that American plane. Make no mistake about it, senior officials say they fully expect to get that plane back.

What we did learn yesterday from the Pentagon is that this crew was not able to go ahead and eliminate all that sensitive equipment and destroy it. So a big concern of the U.S. officials is exactly what sensitive equipment, if any, the Chinese have been able to review, and that's the main reason why they want to get that plane back.

O'BRIEN: All right. Got a couple related ones here. This comes in a cluster, and this one's for you, Martin, so listen up. "The Pentagon shows film of our spy aircraft being harassed. Why did we not take preventive measures to protect these flights immediately after the reckless Chinese acts?" This person's opinion. "One obvious reaction should have been to provide U.S. escort support. Surely the military has other options. These harassment films document very clearly the military dropped the ball here."

And then a related question, coming from Craig Boxer, "Why wasn't this plane and all others, for that matter, escorted by American fighter aircraft if they've been having problems in the past?"

Marty, have folks there in Hawaii given you any sense of this?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there has been a sense of that. A number of answers that you can offer. Number one, when it comes to the issue of this particular incident and safeguards that may have been made, keep in mind the U.S. government has been complaining to the Chinese government about the harassment tactics, about how close the Chinese fighters had been flying to the EP-3s previously.

So that is one thing they did. Also, the EP-3 flies on an autopilot and has a very strict, very designated course. It's in international air space, wants to make sure it stays in international air space, and it flies very straight, very level.

As far as providing fighter aircraft, basically the Navy would say that you don't have to do that because they're in every right to fly that airplane where they are flying it. And if you put fighter aircraft up there, you only add to the aspect of possible confrontation. Then you could get into a shooting match up in the air, which is not what anybody wants.

So essentially, the aircraft is up there flying alone because it is considered to have the right to do that, and it's probably the safest way to conduct those operations. Otherwise you're going to have very crowded skies and greatly increase the opportunity for another incident.

O'BRIEN: And a somewhat related question, Mr. Lardy, I'll bring this to you. Jasper Wooten wants to know this, "Why did we not scramble interceptors to escort the recon mission and observe the F- 8's reactions?" And he's talking post-incident, I think. "Will we on the next missions?" And I just have a question for you, Mr. Lardy. How did the Chinese get F-8s?

LARDY: Well, the F-8 is a domestic indigenous fighter that they produce themselves. It's based on an old Soviet MIG technology. So these are in their inventory. They've been producing them for quite a number of years, so it's an indigenous fighter aircraft.

I'm -- on the question of why we don't scramble, I do think the crowded skies is an issue. I think also we recognize that the Chinese have the right to shadow our reconnaissance aircraft. That's not at issue. The only issue is how close they should be. And I think one of the things that might come out of the meeting next week is an understanding about the distance that we expect their aircraft to maintain vis-a-vis our own aircraft.

O'BRIEN: All right. Lester Johnson has this for you, Kelly. "Why did President George W. Bush not go to Washington State to meet the returning Navy people? This was his first crisis." Related question, "If Mr. Bush could put himself out to welcome baseball players to the White House, he should certainly put himself out to welcome our hero service men and women home in person." That from Mary Delettre.

What do you think, Kelly?

WALLACE: Well, let me answer the second part first, because it appears Mr. Bush has already extended an invitation to those crew members. You'll recall he did speak on the telephone with the 24 service men and women when they landed in Hawaii, and he told them that if they're ever in Washington, they should knock on his door. So clearly a very strong possibility that those crew members could come to the White House.

But as for the first part of the question, definitely something people have been asking, why isn't the president on a plane going to Washington State? Well, the president's spokesman believes that -- says Mr. Bush believes that politicians should not insert themselves into these sensitive moments. Mr. Bush wants to give the crew members their privacy, and he wants them to come home without a lot of hoop- dela. That is a word that Mr. Bush used, so he wants them to be reunited with his families, and he may watch it on television, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, I don't have time to bring Webster's Online up on "hoop-dela." We'll try to get that to you later.

All right, Marty, let's end it with you. And this is something -- we've been going back and forth on this in scripts all morning, and I'd like to know what you think about this. I think this viewer wants to know this. "I think that it would be very helpful if CNN and the other news organizations would stop referring to the EP-3 as a spy plane. This aircraft and other similar planes perform ELINT, electronic intelligence... " this is a veteran of this, by the way -- "and weather reconnaissance flights all around the world, a U-2, at times, might fly as a spy plane, but this is a Navy crew, and it was not a spy mission." That from Don Jessup.

And then one other related, "If you insist on identifying this aircraft as a spy plane, then would you please analyze what you do," meaning us, "that is, you perform surveillance activities and you call it news. Are you then spies?" That from Richard Batson.

SAVIDGE: Well, I agree in some respects, Miles, to the public criticism of the depiction of the aircraft as a spy plane, because that would suggest some sort of covert operation. This in fact was a very open operation. The Chinese government's very well -- aware of it. They knew that these flights were going on. And it is pretty much accepted by just about every nation on the face of the earth that they like to look over the fence at what their neighbors are doing.

So to reference it as a spy plane might suggest something more sinister, although it is gathering information, as spies may do, but it's done very much in the open, so perhaps "spy plane" is not the beset way to depict it -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, we'll leave it at that. Marty Savidge, Kelly Wallace, Nicholas Lardy with Brookings, thank you very much, all of you, for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. And thanks to all of you out there for some fine e-mail questions. We appreciate you sort of choosing the subject for us today. We'll try to do that again sometime.

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