"Trading partner." "Strategic competitor." These euphemisms used by the U.S. foreign policy establishment to describe our relationship with communist China sound increasingly lame and naive in view of recent events.
The news over the weekend that a Chinese warplane collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane in international airspace has thrown the Bush Administration into its first foreign policy crisis. How the situation is handled in Washington will send an unmistakable signal to Beijing about U.S. resolve to remain a force to be reckoned with in Asia.
Here are some things you need to know:
The collision should have been expected. U.S. ships and planes in international airspace and waters have been harassed for weeks by Chinese forces. Chinese jets have come within 20 feet of U.S. planes during previous recent incidents. A Chinese naval vessel came within 100 yards of an unarmed U.S. surveillance ship last week and even more provocatively aimed its gun fire control radar at the U.S. vessel.
These incidents have taken place well outside the 12-mile territorial limit recognized under international law. But China refuses to accept the 12-mile limit and claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. China is also asserting new claims on islands belonging to Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
China's refusal, as of the time I am writing this, to allow U.S. officials to see and talk to the 24 crewmen on board the U.S. plane is a clear violation of international agreements to which China is a party. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry chillingly stated that China reserves the right to "further negotiate" about the fate of the crewmen. There are rumors that China may demand the return of a high-ranking defecting Chinese intelligence officer as the price for the crewmen. This would result in a crisis of extreme proportions.
The Chinese have scored an intelligence coup by forcing our aircraft down. (The Drudge Report is suggesting that the Chinese jets threatened to open fire on the U.S. plane.) Under law, an aircraft in peacetime is an extension of national sovereignty and cannot be boarded. This aircraft, an EP-3E Aries II turboprop is considered to be among the Navy's most
sophisticated surveillance planes. There have been reports that Chinese officials have already gone on board.
One final thought. This morning I went on the CNBC web site and went to the message board of a major U.S. company doing business in China. There, I found U.S. investors expressing more concern about the impact of this incident on their stock price than I did about the sons and daughters of their fellow Americans now in Chinese hands or about the risks to U.S. security from the loss of this plane. "Trade with China will change China." Or so we have been told for many years now. Perhaps. But it is changing us too. The China "lobby" continues to grow in the U.S. as business and investors' concerns overwhelm our traditional emphasis on national security and human rights.
To read more about China, visit our China Alert Section.
