The American Vice President Dick Cheney has said that his government has no plans to apologise to China over the mid-air collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese jet. Mr Cheney said that President Bush had already made clear his regret for the loss of the Chinese pilot, who is still missing and presumed dead. However, he said that the White House could not accept the notion of apologising for being in international air space.
US diplomats were earlier pushing for daily, unrestricted access to the crew of a spy plane detained in southern China, as negotiations for their release inched forward. While the 24 crew members of the EP-3 Aries surveillance plane spent their eighth day in Chinese custody on the island of Hainan, diplomatic bargaining for a solution to the stand-off continued in Beijing and Washington. US military attaché Brigadier General Neal Sealock, who met the crew for a third time in the early hours of Sunday morning in the Hainan provincial capital Haikou, said he had asked for two visits every day.
"We are working hard for unfettered daily access to the crew," Sealock told journalists at his hotel in Haikou. Sealock said the crew, 21 men and three women, had borne up well since their aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan on April 1 following a collision with a Chinese fighter jet. He said the crew was in "high spirits" and "very good health". It was unclear whether US officials broached the sensitive topic of how the collision occurred.
The pilot of the Chinese jet parachuted into the South China Sea after the collision in international airspace, and despite a massive search and rescue mission has not been found. China says the US plane deliberately rammed the Chinese fighter jet and it has demanded a full apology for the incident before it will consider releasing the plane or the crew. The United States has expressed "regret" over the loss of the Chinese pilot but has insisted it will not apologise.
