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Anatomy of a Crisis
April 11, 2001

In this story:
What happened?
China vs the United States
Cultural differences

A carefully worded apology from the U.S. is bringing home 24 members of the U.S. Navy who have been held in China for 11 days. A tense standoff between the U.S. and the world's most populous country appears to be over -- for now.

But how did an accident become a major international incident?

A potential crisis

On April 1, an American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided off the coast of China. The Chinese jet crashed into the sea, and the pilot is presumed dead.

The American crew made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. The crew members were taken to a hotel-like setting where they were well cared for, but not permitted to leave.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin began calling for a formal apology from the United States to "bear all responsibilities for the consequences of the incident" and cease all surveillance activities along the Chinese coastline.

The Chinese people were outraged at the "arrogant" Americans, especially since the official Chinese news agency waited a few days before reporting that the U.S. plane had serious damage and that the landing on Hainan Island was an emergency. Many people thought the plane had invaded the Chinese island.

From the beginning, President Bush refused to apologize, stating that the plane was over international waters. For a few tense days, it looked like the situation could blow up into a major international confrontation.

Why the big deal? Well, this was not your ordinary crash -- the American plane contained sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment and volumes of top-secret data that the crew had gathered about China by listening in on phones, radar and radios, and reading e-mail and faxes.

The Chinese government said the Americans were improperly spying on them. The Americans insisted that their plane was performing a routine mission in international airspace, and that the surveillance activity the crew was performing was perfectly legal.

These "eavesdropping" surveillance missions had been a touchy issue for a long time. American planes had been conducting more and more of these flights lately. The Chinese were getting more and more irritated by what they saw as a repeated invasion of privacy.

Soon, small Chinese fighter jets began to follow the big U.S. surveillance planes. At first, the Chinese jets only got close enough to identify the U.S. plane.

But lately, the U.S. says, the Chinese jets had gotten bolder, tailing the American planes for miles. That seems to be what was happening on April 1 -- two Chinese jets were tailing the American plane when one of them collided with it.

The Chinese say the American plane veered suddenly into the smaller jet. The Americans say the jet got too close and the smaller, more nimble craft had the responsibility to stay out of the way of the bigger plane.

What really happened, and who was at fault? There's an investigation underway, but in the meantime each nation still blames the other. Also undecided is the fate of the plane. U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting to discuss if it will be returned, as requested by President Bush.

Smouldering Tensions

This crisis is not just about two planes or a dead Chinese pilot. The collision ignited tensions that had been smoldering for quite a while.

In fact, the U.S. and China-one of the world's last Communist countries--considered each other enemies not so long ago.

In the past 30 years, relations between the U.S. and China have warmed up somewhat -- especially around issues of trade and commerce. Trade between the U.S. and China totaled $110 billion last year and 54,000 Chinese students attended U.S. schools. American movies and books are very popular in China.

But the U.S.-China relationship took a hit in 1999, when U.S.-led NATO planes accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Three Chinese journalists died.

The Chinese newspapers printed angry editorials and gory pictures from the blast, while the government bussed in outraged Chinese students to protest in front of the American embassy in China. Most Chinese believed the bombing was intentional but the U.S. said it was an accident, caused by out-of-date maps. The end result, however, was more anti-American feeling in China.

At the same time, many Americans are concerned by China's human rights record-especially the government crackdown on religious groups, like Falun Gong, a spiritual movement whose followers have been arrested, jailed and even tortured for practicing an "illegal" religion.

And there is ongoing tension over Taiwan. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, when non-Communist leaders escaped to the small island. China views Taiwan as a breakaway province, not an independent state. But the U.S. has close military ties to Taiwan and has warned China not to try to force reunification.

In spite of these problems, the U.S. Congress voted last summer to include China as a major trading partner and that decision comes up for renewal this summer under an increasingly anti-China Congress.

America could also be influential in delaying China's joining the World Trade Organization and their bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

When is an apology more than an apology?

For days after the crash, the Chinese demanded a full apology. U.S. officials insisted they had nothing to apologize for, although they did say they "regretted" the death of the Chinese pilot.

A deal was finally struck April 11. The U.S. ambassador to China said in a letter that the U.S. was "very sorry" the Chinese pilot died and apologized for landing on Chinese soil without permission.

The Americans did not say that the accident was their fault, but this carefully worded statement seems to have done the trick. The crew is coming home.

Apologies are more important in Chinese and other Asian cultures, than in American culture, where apologies are casually given and received, and often considered simply symbolic.

In China, offering an apology means admitting you are wrong, and it is very serious. In many cases, the moral victory of receiving an apology takes the place of lawsuits or trials.

For example, when the U.S. Navy submarine Greeneville hit and sank a Japanese fishing boat earlier this year, killing nine people, the main thing that the Japanese demanded was an apology -- not just from President Bush, but from the captain of the sub, live and in person.

After several days of hesitation, Captain Scott Waddle, went to Japan against his lawyers' advice and met face to face with the families of the victims to offer what participants reported was a tearful apology. That gesture went a long way in easing the tensions between the two countries.

Americans and Chinese also have different ways of looking at the law, said Jan See Ting, a professor of law in both the U.S. and China, in an interview with National Public Radio. Americans think that because they didn't cross the line and break any international laws, their plane had a legal right to be there.

The Chinese believe that it is better to stay far away from the line between "legal" and "illegal." Going right up to the line but not officially crossing it, is still considered close to cheating.

Ting said his father used to tell him, "Don't tie your shoes in a watermelon patch" -- people walking by might think you are stealing. In other words, it's not enough not to steal, you have to avoid even looking like you might be stealing.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Carter, said on the NewsHour that if the U.S. Secretary of State had called China on the first day and said "there's been an accident, we're sorry your pilot was killed, we don't know what happened, let's investigate" then maybe the two countries would have been able to work out the crisis earlier.

What do you think? How would you have reacted if you were President Bush?

-- By Samara Aberman, NewsHour Extra