The gloves came off US feelings toward China once 24 US servicemen arrived in Hawaii after being detained in China over a mid-air collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese jet.
"China's decision to prevent the return of our crew for 11 days is inconsistent with the kind of relationship we have both said we wish to have," President George W. Bush said Thursday in a statement welcoming the crew's return home.
The muscular tone of Bush's remarks was in marked contrast to the reserved stance he used in the days while the crew members were still being detained, after their emergency landing on southern China's Hainan island.
And they came as Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji warned that the release of the crew did not mean "the end of the case" and declined to guarantee the return of the plane, which was involved in a collision with a Chinese fighter jet on April 1.
Both sides appeared to be hardening their positions ahead of talks opening next Wednesday on issues left unresolved by a deal clinched to end the standoff.
In the face-saving exit from the affair, the United States said in a letter that it regretted the loss of a Chinese pilot in the collision, although it refused to apologize.
In his remarks at the White House, Bush warned Beijing that he would "always stand squarely for American interests and American values" and predicted there would "no doubt" be future clashes.
The president said he would instruct the US representative at Wednesday's talks to ask "tough questions about China's recent practice of challenging United States aircraft operating legally in international airspace."
The April 18 meeting, whose venue has yet to be announced, will tackle Washington's call for the return of its plane and China's demand for an end to US surveillance flights off its coast, while also exploring what caused the collision.
The United States says its EP-3 surveillance plane was flying in international airspace when it collided with the Chinese jet sent to track it, and insists its pilot did nothing wrong.
Bush made clear that the flights would go on.
"Reconnaissance flights are part of a comprehensive national security strategy that helps maintain peace and stability in our world," he said.
Bush's statement was meant to send a signal to China that "what has occurred is not consistent with our hopes for a good relationship," a senior White House official said on Air Force One after Bush left the White House for his ranch in Texas.
The statement, the official told reporters, "underscored the president's point that China is a strategic competitor ... who does not share our values in some cases - particularly in the areas that he mentioned today of human rights and religious freedoms, but yet we do share common interests."
The crewmembers of the downed EP-3 plane returned to Hawaii's Hickam Air Force Base on Thursday to the tune of a brass band and the cheers of flag-waving spectators.
They will be debriefed by teams investigating the collision before returning home for Easter.
Bush spoke to the crew by phone from the White House, welcoming them home and telling them how proud all Americans felt of them, the senior official said on Air Force One.
At one point, the official said, Bush praised Lieutenant Shane Osborn (the spy plane's pilot). "As an old F-102 pilot, let me tell you, Shane you did a heck of a job bringing that airplane in.
"We are really proud of you. You represent the best of America," said the official quoting Bush.
As Bush stiffened his public stance on China, administration officials nevertheless insisted that a workable relationship between the two sides was still possible.
"The framework for productive relations has been preserved," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"Continuing to build on that framework depends not only on the actions of the United States but also the actions of China," he added.
That stance was echoed by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in a string of television interviews on the end of the crisis.
Meanwhile, a top Brazilian official noted on Thursday that Bush had sent President Fernando Henrique Cardoso a handwritten note thanking him for help in mediating the Sino-US conflict.
Bush had asked Cardoso -- who hosted visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Wednesday -- for help in finding a solution to the standoff, and Cardoso obliged by broaching the subject with Jiang.
The missive thanks the Brazilian leader both for his friendship and for help in resolving the problem -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
