Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Peter F. Verga, leader of the eight-member U.S. team, sounded a positive note after the meeting ended. The U.S. Embassy would not say what Prueher told Chinese officials. On Thursday outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, a lone protester shouted against U.S. espionage for a few minutes before police stopped him. The Bush administration has called the collision an accident. It insists the American pilot did not break the law because the plane was flying in international airspace.
China blames the U.S. plane, saying it suddenly rammed the Chinese jet.
China has accused the United States of duplicity in taking a harder line since winning the release of the plane's 24 crew members. It included the February collision of a U.S. Navy submarine and a Japanese fishing boat off Hawaii and a 1998 accident where 20 skiers were killed in Italy after a U.S. Marine Corps fighter jet snapped the cable holding up their ski lift. While American and Chinese negotiators met in Beijing, U.S. officials in Washington were weighing what weapons to sell Taiwan. The communist government considers the island a breakaway province, and has threatened to use force to capture it. The administration has tried to separate the weapons package from the dispute over U.S. spy flights.