They look like businessmen as they eat lunch at the Guangcai Seafood Restaurant in Tangshan, a city south of Beijing, but their talk is strictly military. One of the three, probably all officers from the People's Liberation Army base on the edge of town, boasts of the loyalty of the soldiers in his unit. The conversation turns to the issue on everybody's mind. I think we've pretty much taken it apart by now and know virtually everything that is inside. His companions laugh.
None seem worried about the future.
They should learn not to mess with China. Just a casual conversation among three individuals but it expressed sentiments echoing throughout China. It has cooled down since Beijing last week let the 24 crew members of the stricken U.S. plane return home. But the two sides are heating up their rhetoric on the rights and wrongs of the collision and of U.S. surveillance flights near China. Coming so soon after President George W. Bush took office and ahead of an expected generational change in China's leadership, the confrontation threatens to color each side's view of the other for years.