China has told the United States it will allow American officials access tomorrow to the crew of a Navy surveillance plane that made an emergency landing on the island of Hainan after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet. This is despite the fact that US President George W Bush called on China to grant the officials immediate access to the crew. US officials have travelled to the island to try to win the release of the 24 crew members, but have so far not been allowed to see them.
Mr Bush said that he was troubled by the Chinese Government's inaction so far. Tonight, a White House spokesman said that the Chinese offer of access was for late tomorrow night, Chinese time. US officials say that the last communication from the crew shortly after the plane landed was that armed Chinese soldiers were boarding it.
The plane, said to have been on a routine mission, made an emergency landing in China after colliding with one of two Chinese fighter jets shadowing it in what Washington calls international airspace. Mr Bush said that he was troubled by what he called the lack of a timely Chinese response to the request for this access.
However, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, on a visit to Paris, said that he hoped for a rapid solution to the impasse. He said that he hoped that an adequate solution could be found. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman meanwhile insisted yesterday that the United States was totally to blame for the crash.
Mr Bush today met his leading security advisors to discuss the diplomatic crisis with China. The United States says that the aircraft, which contains classified electronic eavesdropping equipment, is its sovereign territory and that the Chinese should not try to enter it.
The US ambassador to China accused Beijing of behaving unacceptably in its detention of the crew of the spy plane. The American ambassador says that the crew of the aircraft have been held incommunicado for over 32 hours. The pilot of the Chinese plane is missing.
The Americans say that their EP-3 surveillance plane, which had flown from this naval base in Okinawa, Japan, was in international airspace when it was intercepted by two Chinese fighter jets, one of which bumped into the bigger US plane. The Chinese say that the US aircraft rammed their plane, causing it to crash. Otherwise, there has been little comment from the Chinese authorities on the incident.
Two US naval officers who went from Beijing to Hainan were denied access to the crew. The Americans are insisting that the Chinese have no right to board their stricken aircraft, which is loaded with sensitive spying equipment. They are demanding that the Chinese repair and return the plane.
The incident comes at a delicate time, when relations between the countries had just been restored after the rupture caused by the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade two years ago and when the Chinese are testing the new Bush administration's policy towards their country.
