It also noted that the mishandling of this incident has shown the inexperience of the US President George W. Bush's administration in its foreign policies. This is not the first time that the United States has violated the territorial integrity of other countries, it stressed, saying it has happened before causing loss of life and property damage. On April 1, a US EP-3 surveillance plane bumped into a Chinese jet fighter off the coast of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The Chinese fighter crashed and its pilot is still missing. The US spy plane landed in China's Hainan island without permission.
China demands an official apology from the United States for the collision.
The comment said that the United States was engaged in spying activities involving a surveillance aircraft loitering in a sensitive area and collecting Chinese signals and radar emissions. From the Chinese perspective, the US aircraft was not conducting an innocent overflight through space above China's EEZ, it said. A Chinese pilot is missing after the incident, the article said. At the very least, the Chinese are entitled to investigate the cause of it. China has no interest in prolonging the dispute, the comment said.