Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) yesterday demanded the US accept full responsibility for the collision of a Chinese fighter and a US spy plane and halt all surveillance flights near China's coast.
In his first public comments on the incident, Jiang made no mention of the 24 US crew members of the surveillance plane now in their third day of captivity on the Chinese island of Hainan.
US President George W. Bush on Monday demanded immediate access to the crew and the return of the top-secret surveillance aircraft, which Washington's ambassador to Beijing said had probably already been combed over by Chinese officials.
China has accused the US EP-3 plane of veering into one of two F-8 fighters on an interception mission 104km south of Hainan in international air space.
"We have sufficient evidence," Jiang told the visiting Prime Minister of Qatar, Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.
The US must "bear full responsibility," the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
US officials say they were told American diplomats waiting in Hainan would be allowed to see the 24 crew last night. But as darkness fell over the tropical island there was still no word of when a meeting would take place.
Two of the diplomats left their hotel in the southern city of Sanya and traveled to Haikou in the north of the island. That sparked speculation the crew might be taken to Haikou, which has an international airport.
"We cannot understand why the US often sent its planes to make surveillance flights in areas so close to China," Jiang said.
"And this time, in violation of international law and practice, the US plane bumped into our plane, invaded the Chinese territorial airspace and landed at our airport," he said.
Jiang said the US should stop such flights and this would be "conducive to the development of the China-US relationship."
US ambassador to China, Admiral Joseph Prueher, said he believed Chinese officials had been "all over" the US plane, which is a potential intelligence treasure trove.
Washington has warned China to stay off the plane, which it maintains is US sovereign territory under international law.
"We are sure that the crew is not on the airplane and we have every reason to think that the Chinese have been all over the airplane," Prueher said in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America.
Prueher told ABC it was unclear whether the crew had been forced off the aircraft.
"We don't know the circumstances and that's one reason we have been pressing so hard for access to the crew," he said.
He said the crew was trained to destroy sensitive materials in the event of an unplanned landing, but it was unclear how successful they might have been.
"We think that they, at least, started on some destruction of the material on the aircraft," he said.
Asked by CBS Television's Early Show whether he thought the US should take responsibility and apologize, Prueher said, "As a matter of fact, I do have a problem with it and I think our government would have a problem with it as well."
At a news conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao (
"We will strictly follow the relevant US-China agreements," he said, without elaborating.
"China has the right to investigate this. I will not say how the investigation is being done while the investigation is underway," he said.
US officials were growing increasingly frustrated as the hours dragged by without contact with the crew, last heard from shortly after they landed in Hainan on Sunday when they radioed that armed Chinese soldiers were boarding the plane.
Zhu said the crew members were safe.
Xinhua yesterday reported the Chinese pilot had parachuted from his plane and that Jiang had called for "utmost efforts" to find him in the South China Sea.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under