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UNITED NATIONS — Imagine for a moment an American EP3 Orion aircraft reconnaissance mission, droning off the China coast in international airspace when suddenly the plane is "jumped" by two Chinese F8 fighter interceptors, damaged in a collision with one of them, and the next thing you know an sophisticated spyplane is making an emergency landing on Hainan Island, People's Republic of China! While this seems the grist for the opening of a Tom Clancy novel, this happened ironically enough on April Fools Day.
The mysterious mid-air collision between and US Navy EP3 Orion surveillance turboprop aircraft and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea started as an accident which rapidly escalated into an incident. The crippled US Navy plane landed safely in Lingshui base only to have its 24 crew detained and the aircraft illegally boarded by communist authorities. Flouting accepted international norms, American consular officials were at first barred by the Chinese from contact with the American crew.
The EP3 incident represents a calculated and crude provocation by the Chinese communists aimed at bullying President George W. Bush into not selling defensive weapons to the Republic of China on Taiwan. Thus while an accident was the unintended outcome of such traditional cat and mouse reconnaissance missions, Beijing's reaction towards resolving it also reflects both an understandable assertion of nationalistic hubris but more significantly a power struggle inside China.
Look at the timeline. The perennial issue of Taiwan arms sales energizes the Beijing regime's stiff but calculating opposition. First Chinese American academics are seized on the Mainland. Then PRC Vice Premier Qian Qichen met President George Bush and is pleasant but firm in opposing the sales. Another Chinese American academic is arrested. Now the EP3 incident in the South China Sea near the hypersensitive Paracel island region.
Put this in the larger perspective of an expanding PRC military budget and an increasingly aggressive mindset to test the limits and you have a recipe for confrontation.
According to the Taipei Times, the American aircraft was shadowing China's newest Russian built Sovremenny-class destroyer before it was intercepted, damaged and forced to land on Hainan. Military radar on Taiwan picked up the EP3 flying circles near the Sovremenny at low altitude before it was buzzed by the two fighters, one of which after losing control, crashed with the apparent loss of the pilot. In the last year a number of U.S. aircraft have had close encounters with the Chinese communists; the EP3 was monitoring a ship which poses a threat to US Navy Aircraft Carrier battle groups.
Though Beijing demands Washington apologize for the accident, China has long used the concepts of confession and contrition--whether justified or not--as a means through which others admit guilt and China "saves face." President Bush is wise to express America's profound regret for the loss of the Chinese pilot, but not open polemical Pandora's boxes which may elicit further demands by Beijing.
The political and economic collateral damage from the incident to communist China could be severe as it could presage a seachange in Sino/American relations by the Bush Administration. Clearly many Chinese business and even government officials are aghast that Beijing's Marxist Mandarins are willing to jeopardize a $100 billion trade relationship with America which has bought them dizzying surpluses, a Congressional acceptance of Normal Trading Relations, a serious bid for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and an near admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Moreover, the U.S. has sold Communist China high tech computer, electronics, and satellite technology in the 1990's, while the former Clinton Administration promoted a Pollyanna like view of the People's Republic of China a "strategic partner!"
Naturally, Chinese domestic politics play a key role in the standoff. President and Communist Party boss Jiang Zemin will step down next year along with many ruling Politburo members. Combine this with the usual jockeying for power leading up to a party congress and set amid domestic rumblings on the Chinese Mainland, and one sees the advantage in taking a tough line with Washington. While tub thumping jingoism plays well with the Politburo and the proletariat, China's interests are not served well by this aggressive face to the world. It's time for China to return the crew and the plane.
Ironically the EP3 incident may trigger the law of unintended consequences, namely that the U.S. now more than ever sees the genuine threat Taiwan faces from the Mainland Dragon and will go ahead with providing Free China with the weapons it needs to defend itself.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
