Both China and the United States have traded pointed comments. Bush publicly warned earlier this week that the time had come to release the crew and the plane or harm will come to U.S.-China relations. Powell has categorically rejected President Jiang Zemin's insistence on a formal apology and a stop to the intelligence-gathering missions off China's coasts. It is very reminiscent of what happened between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Both countries eventually learned how to live with these missions and they became relatively routine.
Great nations watch each other closely, even when relations are relatively normal.
Many here believe the fault lies with the Chinese pilot, who after all was flying a much faster and more maneuverable jet dangerously near a slow propeller plane. The U.S. plane was flying in international air space, about 70 nautical miles from China's Hainan Island. The Chinese claim that the prop plane was flying in Chinese territorial waters and veered into the jet. A retired pilot who flew SR-71 spy missions for many years told this writer that either version of how the two planes collided is possible. The Chinese are also accusing the U.S. plane of an unauthorized landing on Chinese territory.