The crew was allowed to return to the United States after 11 days on the island. Another irritant in U.S.-China relations comes as Washington is to make a decision, possibly next week, on selling weapons to Taiwan. The communist government considers the island a breakaway province and has threatened to use force to capture it. The sides split amid civil war in 1949. The administration has tried to separate the weapons package from the dispute over U.S. spy flights.
China bitterly resents the Taiwan arms sales.
China's state media kept up a blizzard of criticism of the United States on Friday. The paper also quoted experts at government-run think tanks blaming the United States for the lack of agreement in the talks this week. Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.