The stage has been set for a tense showdown between China and the US this week on the issue of American spy missions in the South China Sea.
The two sides are to meet on Wednesday, probably in Beijing, for the first round of talks as part of the deal which secured the release of the 24 US aircrew detained on Hainan Island for 11 days after their surveillance aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet.
Yesterday, China proclaimed the missing pilot of its jet, now presumed dead following the collision, as a "revolutionary martyr". It denounced Washington's version of events that the pilot had caused the collision.
State newspapers yesterday announced the enshrinement of the pilot, Wang Wei, as a communist hero. The Chinese navy paid tribute to what it called Wang's "glorious sacrifice" in the incident on April 1st, which started a Sino-American stand off.
Wang joins countless thousands of "revolutionary martyrs" in China, stretching back to underground party activists executed in the 1930s and including three Chinese state journalists killed in the NATO bombing of China's Belgrade embassy in May, 1999.
As well as future spy missions, this week's talks between China and the US are likely to focus on what happened on April 1st and what will happen to the crippled spy plane, which is still on China's Hainan Island where it made an emergency landing.
Washington has taken a tougher line with China following the return of its aircrew. It has asserted that the Chinese fighter was to blame for the collision over the South China Sea.
However, on Saturday a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mr Zhang Qiyue, said the US charges were not beneficial for the development of Sino-US relations and not beneficial to the forthcoming talks.