[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 49 (Thursday, April 5, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E584-E585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REGARDING CHINA, IS IT GETTING PERSONAL?

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 4, 2001

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member wants to call his colleagues 
attention to the article by Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post on 
April 4, 2001. He most assuredly is correct that it is highly unlikely 
that the collision between a U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft and 
the high performance F-8 fighter interceptor was caused by the American 
aircraft. That collision, undisputedly, took place in international 
airspace, so no apology is owed or should be delivered by our 
Government. The recent harassment of our surveillance aircraft by 
Chinese interception in the region, as

[[Page E585]]

reported by Admiral Dennis Blair, Commander-in-Chief Pacific, in a 
recent news conference reported that these interceptors have been 
flying dangerously close to our aircraft and that we had filed a formal 
protest. Any apology is not the responsibility of the United States. 
Unfortunately, the immediate comments from the highest level of the 
Chinese Government informed the Chinese people and the world that the 
U.S. aircraft invaded Chinese airspace, but it didn't inform them that 
was the case only after the EP-3E pilot sought the closest landing base 
for his damaged aircraft on Hainan Island.

                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 4, 2001]

                Regarding China, Is It Getting Personal?

                           (By Jim Hoagland)

       For reasons physical and political, the probability that an 
     American spy plane deliberately rammed a Chinese jet fighter 
     over the South China Sea on Sunday runs as close to a perfect 
     zero as mathematics allows. Imagine a fully loaded moving van 
     trying to ram a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on an open plain 
     and you get the picture.
       So the official Chinese version of the collision that 
     forced a U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic surveillance warplane into 
     a mayday landing on Hainan Island can be dismissed. The 
     Chinese F-8 pilot who went up to harass American spies at 
     work almost certainly overdid his instructions to be 
     particularly aggressive and accidentally flew into the 
     lumbering propeller-driven craft.
       But Beijing's false accusation of U.S. responsibility is 
     revealing nonetheless. It tells us much about the air of 
     confrontation that has quickly developed between President 
     George W. Bush's incoming administration and President Jiang 
     Zemin's outgoing leadership team.
       The Chinese lie is a reflexive act of pride, and pride is a 
     driving force for Jiang as he draws an ever-clearer line in 
     the sand for Bush. The underlying strategic tensions between 
     the two nations are rapidly getting personal: Jiang sees 
     American actions suddenly threatening his legacy.
       Even the best-laid strategies can be blown off course by 
     stray winds. The spy plane incident is the latest in a series 
     of seemingly unrelated, and unplanned, mishaps in American-
     Chinese relations since Bush's election. Taken together, 
     these incidents illustrate the force of serendipity in 
     politics and policy.
       None of their intelligence briefings or position papers 
     would have
       Both the defection and, to Chinese eyes, the suspicious 
     timing of the leak may have put China's heavy-handed security 
     services even more on edge. They terrorized a Chinese-
     American family visiting relatives in China by arresting the 
     mother, Gao Zhan, on espionage charges Feb. 11, and have 
     arrested at least one other Chinese American scholar since.
       Jiang was no more likely to have been consulted on Gao 
     Zhan's arrest than Bush was to have been asked to authorize 
     the specific espionage mission near Hainan that went wrong. 
     But the two leaders must now deal with the consequences of 
     these incidents, and do so at an unsetting moment of dual 
     transition.
       Jiang, who is due to retire by 2003, is beginning to 
     gradually yield power, while Bush is trying to grab hold of 
     it with a seriously understaffed administration.
       Add to this the reality that China and the United States 
     have never developed the kind of informal crisis-management 
     framework that Washington and Moscow learned to apply to 
     strategic mishap, and the opportunity for the EP-3 incident 
     to become the first crisis of Bush's presidency is evident. 
     It is a time for caution on both sides.
       The plane incident comes as Bush moves toward a decision 
     later this month on Taiwan's request to buy new U.S. weapons, 
     including four destroyers equipped with sophisticated Aegis 
     phased radar systems. It was to head off this sale that Jiang 
     dispatched Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen to meet with 
     Bush last month.
       Bush refused to give Qian any assurances on a subject that 
     Jiang has made into the make-or-break issue in Chinese-
     American relations. Pride dictates this stand more than 
     strategic calculation, since the radar systems would take 
     nearly a decade to deliver.
       Jiang began his term by promising his colleagues on the 
     Politburo to bring China to the point of reabsorbing Taiwan 
     at a time of Beijing's choosing, according to U.S. 
     intelligence reports. The Aegis sale would be a powerful 
     symbol of failure in Jiang's quest for what he said would be 
     his most ``historic accomplishment.''
       Bush must make the decision on the Aegis sale on its own 
     merits and not allow Jiang to gain leverage over the sale 
     through the spy plane incident. There may be other weapons 
     systems that would meet Taiwan's immediate needs as well as 
     the Aegis, but that decision must be made on military and 
     national security criteria, not under the threat of Chinese 
     blackmail.
       The Pentagon may have acted unwisely in sending the 
     espionage plane so close to China at this particularly 
     sensitive moment. But there can be no American apology based 
     on the false Chinese version of events, as Beijing demands. 
     That is not just a matter of pride. It is one of justice.

     

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