US Defence Secretary takes hardline stance on China

There is a new, sharper edge to President Bush's comments on China now the crew of the US surveillance aircraft are home. However, while Mr Bush's remarks are still restrained, his Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, has taken an uncompromising stand, blaming the Chinese pilot for the collision.

On Thursday evening, Mr Bush spoke of "tough questions" about China's aggressive challenges to US surveillance planes and warned: "The kind of incident we have just been through does not advance a constructive relationship between our two countries.

"Both the United States and China must make a determined choice to have a productive relationship that will contribute to a more secure, more prosperous and more peaceful world.

"I will always stand squarely for American interests and American values," he said. "And those will, no doubt, sometimes cause disagreements with China. Yet I will approach our differences in a spirit of respect."

Though clearly less restrained than while the crew were being held, Mr Bush's comments avoided insults and fell short of what some more hawkish critics would like him to be saying.

Meanwhile, Mr Rumsfeld has claimed the Chinese pilot had "intended to harass the crew" of the US aircraft. "It was not the first time that our reconnaissance and surveillance flights flying in that area received that type of aggressive contact from interceptors," he said. "We had every right to be flying where we were flying," he added, noting that the US EP-3 plane had been flying on an "overt reconaissance mission in international airspace . . . on a well-known flight path we have used for decades".

Next Wednesday's talks about the causes of the accident, the return of the EP-3, and US surveillance are likely to prove frustrating for the Chinese, sources here say, as the US is particularly adamant that there can be no question of restricting its surveillance missions and is also insisting it wants its aircraft back.

A senior State Department official said yesterday that the US would press China for the return of its aircraft.

"It's an $80 million plane," Deputy Secretary of State Mr Richard Armitage said. "It's ours. We feel the Chinese have a responsibility to return it to us."

China responded last night by saying it had not yet decided what to do with the aircraft.

"As you well know, China is the victimized party in this incident," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Zhu Bangzao said. "In conformity with relevant international and Chinese law, we are going to conduct a full investigation of this plane." Yesterday the Pentagon rev ealed details of what it said was the emerging picture of the fateful collision from the early debriefing of its returned crew. According to reports, the Chinese fighter ascended fast from 45 degrees below the EP-3, clipping its left propeller, while the US aircraft maintained a straight course on automatic pilot.

The effect was to send debris crashing into and severely damaging the nose-cone of the EP3 and knocking out the inboard engine on the right wing.

The EP-3 then allegedly went into a steep dive for some 5,000 feet, during which the pilot, Lieut Shane Osborn, ordered the crew to put on parachutes and considered telling them to bail out.

Sources said that after righting the plane Lieut Osborn thought of ditching at sea. But finally, he decided he had a good chance of landing at the Lingshui Chinese military base 40 to 50 miles away. He put in at least five calls to the airport but did not hear a response, they say.

"We were unable to hear any response that they did give due to holes in my pressure bulkhead causing air noise into the aircraft," Lieut Osborn was quoted as telling Mr Rumsfeld.

This morning the crew are to board a flight to their aircraft's home base on Whidbey Island in Washington, where they will be reunited with their families. The crew will be given 30 days' leave.

AAdditional reporting: AF The US military held a solemn repatriation ceremony for seven Americans in Vietnam yesterday.

The seven, all military personnel, were killed last Saturday in a helicopter crash while searching for the remains of soldiers missing in action in the Vietnam War. Their bodies were carried on to a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport, watched by Vietnamese officials and military representatives. "It is a loss that I cannot describe, a loss that Vietnam and America will suffer and grieve together," said the US ambassador to Vietnam, Mr Pete Peterson.

--(Reuters)