Of course, the Chinese pilot was operating under military instruction to fly as close as he could and harass our plane. The Chinese do not allow hot-shot pilots to make their own decisions about creating an international incident. It wasn't any accident. Since the U.S. plane was a slow-flying propeller plane and the Chinese aircraft was a fast fighter jet, it's clear which plane had the greater speed and maneuverability to avoid a collision. Rumsfeld said that the crew made some 25 to 30 attempts to send distress signals to alert Hainan Island that the U.S. plane would be forced to land.
Many countries perform similar missions.
Under international agreements accepted by both China and the United States, China had no legal right to detain the crew or to search the U.S. plane that was forced to land on Hainan Island. Under the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, China and the United States are parties which undertake to provide such measure of assistance to aircraft in distress in its territory as it may find practicable. There is a traditional right of safe harbor in distress that goes back to 19th century and even earlier maritime law. Now that the U.S. crew has told us what really happened, it's clear that President George W. Bush bent over backward to accommodate China's hurt feelings, more than the circumstances warranted. The Chinese didn't deserve anything that they could construe as an apology, but since Bush's words got the crew back sooner rather than later, there's no point in second-guessing him.