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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
U.S. plane inspectors head to China
China allows access to spy plane; media barred from Hainan
The damaged U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic reconnaissance plane sits on the runway
at Lingshui base on China's Hainan Island earlier this month.
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
HONOLULU, April 30 — A group of technicians from an American aerospace
company headed for China on Monday to determine whether the damaged Navy spy
plane can be flown back to the United States or will have to be disassembled.
The technical team from Lockheed Martin is expected to spend two days on
Hainan Island.
April 30 — A U.S. inspection team will soon get a firsthand look at the spy
plane still in China. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reports.
THE FIVE or so technicians from the main contractor for the EP-3E
aircraft arrived in Hawaii and were briefed by military officials.
They will inspect the plane on Hainan Island, where it landed after a
collision with a Chinese fighter jet April 1.
“It’s like taking your car to the mechanic to take a look at it after
it crashed,” said Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman.
Another team will probably be sent to repair or remove the plane,
depending on the assessment team’s recommendations, he said.
“The less you have to tear it apart the better,” Barger said. “Like
your car, you’d rather have it in one piece than several.”
Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the plane cannot be flown now
and would probably have to be taken out on a barge. Barger said U.S.
officials also will consider using a C-5 or C-17 aircraft to airlift it out.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier that
the Chinese apparently had ruled out allowing the plane to be repaired and
flown out on its own.
The plane’s 24-member crew was held on Hainan Island for 11 days by
the Chinese before being allowed to return to the United States.
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reported that the technical team should arrive
in the provincial capital Haikou on Wednesday (late Tuesday ET). After going
through the usual customs formalities, the technicians will be taken to the
airbase on the southern tip of the island.
ISSUE OF PAYMENT
In Beijing, the Chinese government announced that foreign journalists
would not be allowed to go to Hainan to report on the inspection of the
crippled plane. “We are formally telling you not to go,” a Foreign Ministry
official, Wei Xing, said in a telephone call to The Associated Press.
Local officials largely tolerated a large throng of foreign
journalists during the 11-day standoff following the EP-3E’s emergency
landing on Hainan. But two CNN journalists were detained while broadcasting
the crew’s departure.
Newsweek: A new Pacific strategy
The U.S. plane’s crew was released after President Bush said he was “very
sorry” for the loss of the Chinese pilot and for the U.S. plane’s
unauthorized entry into Chinese air space to make its emergency landing.
At April 18-19 talks in Beijing, American negotiators presented a
written proposal for U.S. experts to inspect the plane to determine whether
to repair and fly it out, or ship it out in pieces.
“Having completed its investigation and evidence collection involving
the U.S. plane and in view of international precedents in handling such
issues, the Chinese side has decided to allow the U.S. side to inspect its
plane at the Lingshui Airport,” the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.
Advertisement
Xinhua also said the United States has agreed to consider making a
payment to China, although U.S. officials said that any payment would
represent compensation for Chinese assistance. There will be no additional
compensation, they said.
The team will try to determine what military and hardware secrets the
Chinese may have collected in the month since the plane has been on the
ground. Crewmen aboard the U.S. plane used hammers and other measures to try
to disable intelligence equipment.
Last week, U.S. officials told NBC News that the losses may have been
far more damaging than originally feared.
The officials said the U.S. plane was carrying additional intelligence
information that “should not have been on that mission” and could provide a
“significant intelligence windfall” to the Chinese.
According to the officials, the additional information included
intelligence briefing books and manuals, essentially “how-to books on U.S.
spying” that explain how the United States conducts its intelligence
gathering against China.
If this information was not sufficiently destroyed, “the damage would
be significant,” because it would provide the Chinese with valuable insight
that would help them in defeating U.S. surveillance efforts, the officials
said.
It’s believed the additional information was carried aboard the flight
because this was a relatively “junior crew” that may have needed the
briefing materials for quick reference.
BUSH MEANT WHAT HE SAID
Over the weekend, top administration officials reiterated President
Bush’s tough stand that a military response from the United States remains an
option if China attacks Taiwan.
Cheney said Bush meant what he said when he abandoned two decades of
ambiguity last week and declared the United States would do “whatever it
took” to defend Taiwan in the event of attack from China.
“We’re very serious about defending Taiwan,” Cheney said on Fox.
And White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card added: “It’s important
that the United States live up to its obligations to help Taiwan defend
itself and that’s what the president reiterated.”
Meanwhile, a senior official with organization aimed at enticing the
2008 Olympic Games to Beijing said Monday he was confident that tensions with
the United States wouldn’t affect China’s efforts.
“There are many positive factors in the international environment for
our bid this time,” said Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing bid
committee.
“But there are many many difficulties including the China-U.S. plane
collision and other international problems,” Jiang told a news conference.
“The bid committee is focused on doing its bid work well and feels
these factors may have some imperceptible influence on the Olympic bid but no
direct influence.”
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