US President Mr George W Bush plans to send a letter to the wife of the missing Chinese pilot, personally expressing his regret at the collision with a US spy plane, US officials said today.
US national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice said the president was responding in a humanitarian way to a letter sent by the pilot's wife, Ruan Guoqin, through diplomatic channels last week.
"The president is taking the high ground here, and he's simply responding to the expression ofgrief in the widow's letter and to nothing else", Ms Rice said.
Saying she was writing from her hospital bed, Ms Ruan accused Mr Bush of cowardice in his handling of the incident and of groundlessly defaming her husband, whose warplane was in a collision with a US spy plane.
"There are clearly elements of the pilot's wife's letter with which we do not agree, but the president really felt and it does say what kind of person he is, it says what kind of people we are as Americans, that she has in fact lost her husband, her son has lost a father and the parents of this pilot have lost a son", Ms Rice said.
China has blamed the accident on the US plane, saying it veered and rammed the F-8 jet piloted by Wang Wei. It has demanded Washington apologize for the incident.
Ms Rice said while Washington regretted the Chinese pilot was missing, the United States had done nothing wrong and reiterated her government's position that it would not apologize.