Saving Face

By NANCY GIBBS AND MICHAEL DUFFY

Everyone had a job to do onboard the dying Navy reconnaissance plane when it began to fall out of the sky. The two pilots up front were trying to save the aircraft, while the other 22 crew members in back were trying to destroy what was inside it. Two Chinese F-8 fighters had been tracking the plane closely, too closely, for 10 minutes. The U.S. flyers even recognized one of the pilots, Wang Wei, a notorious hotdogger who one time flew so close to an American plane that he could be seen holding up his e-mail address on a piece of paper. It was Wang's plane that clipped the EP-3E's left wing, slashed one of its four propellers into pieces and smashed off the plane's nose before spiraling into the South China Sea. Rocked by the collision, the vibrating turboprop plunged 8,000 ft. before pilot Shane Osborn regained control. "Mayday! Mayday!" a flyer called into the radio, as the pilots shut down the most damaged engine, and the plane bucked and shuddered in indignation. There was no chance of making it 1,300 miles back to Okinawa or even to the Philippines. The closest airstrip was on the resort island of Hainan, known in Chinese legend as the "end of the world," where the sky and sea meet to form a perfect haven. It is also home to many Chinese military bases, the kind of place where honeymooners sit on the beach and watch the submarines surface offshore, the fighter jets buzz overhead. You couldn't pick a worse place to land one of the most highly classified planes the U.S. has ever built, full of secrets about how we gather secrets--if the pilots could manage to land at all.

While they wrestled the crippled plane, the crew had a familiar drill to follow: the "classified destruction plan," which assigns each crew member a sensitive part of the plane to demolish. Some of the steps--erasing computer hard drives that recorded the day's mission--were manageable even if the plane's violent rocking kept the crew strapped into their seats. But the most sophisticated eavesdropping gear was supposed to be destroyed in order to be saved, smashed with hammers and hatchets or stuffed into weighted bags and dumped out of the plane's cargo doors. Once the plane managed to land safely, there could be one last chance to cram secret papers into special containers and then detonate grenades inside them.

By the time news of the harrowing collision became public, a similar drill was being repeated in Washington and Beijing. Some on the front lines of the U.S.-China relationship were trying to save it, while others in the back seemed intent on blowing it up. Neither country was able to manage a clear response for days. In both, there are hard-liners, who seem to miss the days of cold war chest thumping, arrayed against accommodationists, who value, among other peace dividends, the $116 billion in annual trade. It was in the interest of both to let the other side know there were divisions within their ranks. That's the nature of the game, played this round by George W. Bush, a blunt-spoken Westerner whose father was once a special envoy to China, and President Jiang Zemin, an aging autocrat who staked his authority on building a better relationship with the West, only to come under fire at home for going too far. In a test of pride and power, two Presidents fought to control the weapons of diplomacy, the tiny spaces between a concern, a regret and an apology.

Bush was at Camp David that Saturday night with a group that included National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice when he got word of the incident. Twenty-four American servicemen and -women were being held at the Lingshui air base on Hainan.

"How serious is it?" he asked Rice.

"I don't know," she said, and started working the phones back to Washington, talking with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense chief Donald Rumsfeld and relaying information to the President. Bush remained publicly silent all through Sunday as U.S. diplomats looked for a discreet way out of the impasse. Bush knew that whatever signals he sent went not only to the Chinese but also to the rest of the world, which was waiting to see how an inexperienced new President would handle his first foreign policy test, how his instinct for caution would play against his equally instinctive impatience.

It would have to be China, of course, that first crossed the new President: this was, after all, a rival and maybe a threat, a vast market and a nimble supplier. And yet Bush had made it clear all through his campaign that he rejected what he considered Bill Clinton's tolerance of every Chinese outrage--the spy scandals, the weapons sales, the human rights abuses--so long as nothing got in the way of our growing trade. Bush clearly sided with those who favored a tougher line when he took to calling China a "strategic competitor," not a partner. That shift pleased a whole range of constituencies, evangelical Christians worried about religious persecution, union protectionists, unthawed cold warriors, human rights activists. But the business lobby had other agendas, and they were all going to be watching closely.

The Administration's initial response was to stay cool, keep quiet, give the Chinese room to move. "The message to the Chinese," says a White House official, "was, 'Guys, this is a very unfortunate incident. We'd like to get it wrapped up as quickly as possible, because if we can get it wrapped up soon, it won't become a crisis.'" But even Powell had trouble getting through for a private talk with anyone who mattered in Beijing, and the public tone was not encouraging. Chinese officials claimed that the U.S. plane had veered suddenly into the F-8 fighter, even though the EP-3E is about half as fast as and far less nimble than the Chinese jet. The collision had occurred about 70 miles off China's coast; China considers its sovereign airspace to extend 200 miles offshore, even though international agreements recognize only 12 miles. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao declared that the plane had violated Chinese airspace, landed without permission and thus lost its sovereign immunity--so the Chinese government would be perfectly within its rights to go aboard to try to figure out the reason for the intrusion.

When satellite photographs showed the plane partly covered in tarps--the better to hide the work of prying Chinese engineers--it confirmed the Administration's fears. While the EP-3E is an old plane, a model that began flying in 1969, its electronic guts are up-to-the-minute. No EP-3E has ever been shot down or captured, even though the "flying pig," as it is called, is a long-range, slow-flying unarmed aircraft. "The most important thing to the Chinese on that airplane was the data we had collected earlier that day," says Norman Polmar, an independent Navy expert. "That would tell them which of their systems is vulnerable to interception--Are we able to intercept telephone conversations from Chinese naval headquarters to ships? Are we able to intercept radar transmissions at certain frequencies?--that's what the Chinese want to know."

It was bad enough that the Chinese were holding the crew and autopsying the plane; then Jiang stepped forward to charge that the U.S. was fully responsible for the crash and owed China an apology. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer flatly ruled out any such thing, and not just because being a superpower means never having to say you're sorry. The U.S. was more than willing to apologize for accidentally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade two years ago. But in the case of this collision, the near instant consensus among U.S. military pilots was that if anyone was at fault, it was the Chinese.

"It's like a speedboat and a sailboat," said a Navy pilot. "The smaller, more powerful guy has the responsibility to avoid the bigger, slower one." Yet recently, as the U.S. stepped up surveillance flights in response to China's buildup in the area, the Chinese pilots had become more aggressive. "Sometimes they're so close you can see their faces," David Cecka, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class onboard the downed plane, had told his mother. It got so bad that U.S. officials complained. "We went to the Chinese and said, 'Your aircraft are not intercepting in a professional manner. There is a safety issue here,'" recalls Admiral Dennis Blair, head of the U.S. Pacific Command. "It's not normal practice to play bumper cars in the air."

By Monday morning, some 36 hours had passed without progress. Bush met with Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney and agreed that it was time for him to make a statement and turn up the pressure on Jiang. But there were domestic political pressures at play as well. The White House was keen to show that Bush was in charge, setting the tone, weighing the options. Cheney would spend the week conspicuously busy on Capitol Hill, worrying about the budget. As for Rumsfeld and Powell, now playing tug-of-war with their second generation of Bush Presidents, it was the more moderate Powell who had the lead. "It's our air crew--they are military people," Pentagon spokesman Craig Quigley said. "But if you think of a military solution to this, that's not the way ahead. The way ahead is a diplomatic one." Rumsfeld, known to favor a hard line, was ever the good soldier. "Right now he agrees with everything that's being done," a close Rumsfeld aide said. "He's been involved with this thing from the beginning, but he has no desire to stand out." And so it was Bush himself who went before the cameras on Monday to read a statement designed to sound firm but not threatening. The White House had decided not to attack the Chinese pilot for hotdogging near the U.S. plane, and instead called the collision an "accident." "Our priorities are the prompt and safe return of the crew," Bush said, "and the return of the aircraft without further damaging or tampering."

That put Bush front and center, but it was a risk. When those comments failed to win the crew's release, the next move seemed to be anyone's guess. "They put him out," said a foreign policy veteran of the first Bush White House. "But when nothing happened, then it was like, 'O.K., what do we do now?'"

By Tuesday, some in the Administration felt they were being stonewalled. Jiang continued to insist that the fault lay with the U.S. The Chinese President also called for an end to U.S. surveillance flights. At 2 p.m., Bush walked into the Oval Office and immediately asked Rice to get Brigadier General Neal Sealock on the phone. Sealock, the U.S. military attache in Beijing, had finally been allowed in to see the crew, but for just 40 minutes under strict conditions: no recording devices, no individual conversations, the Chinese always present. The crew had been able to convey word that they had wiped out much of the sensitive information before the Chinese had boarded the plane.

So at 4 p.m., after the markets closed, Bush walked into the Rose Garden and reminded China of the consequences of delay. "We have allowed the Chinese government time to do the right thing," he said. "But now it is time for our servicemen and -women to return home." The whole relationship was on the line. "This accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries."

Bush did open one tiny window. Once again he mentioned getting the plane back, but by now this was a bargaining chip. The Chinese were not likely to relinquish such a prize, yet by demanding it Bush might allow them to save some face by releasing the crew but keeping the plane. By the time Rumsfeld issued his first statement the next day, there was no mention of the plane. "The plane doesn't matter anymore," said a Bush adviser. "It's destroyed anyway."

As it retuned the message, the Administration discussed even tougher options. Diplomatic meetings and military exchanges could be canceled. Bush could drop his fall visit to Beijing. He could make dark noises about trade, even end normal trading status. The U.S. could get in the way of China's quest to hold the 2008 Olympics. Then there was the question of whether to sell advanced defensive weapons to Taiwan. "He's got a lot of sticks," a former Clinton Administration official says of Bush, "but the problem is, they're all too big."

Bush's Tuesday remarks left some old China hands dismayed. "You don't want to talk about harming the relationship until you know what sort of harm you may be inflicting," said J. Stapleton Roy, who was ambassador to Beijing under Bush's father and a top U.S. diplomat under Clinton. "I think it does reflect a certain amount of inexperience when you make statements like that." Roy blamed Bush's tone on Administration officials "who are unrealistic in their expectations of how China should behave in these circumstances."

And it wasn't long after Bush spoke that the Administration began to dial it back. A tantalizing question through the first tense days was how much the 43rd President was huddling with the 41st. Bush gave no hint, even to some of his closest aides, that he was talking to his father, but everyone in the West Wing assumed he was. Dad's diplomatic alter ego, Brent Scowcroft, was in regular communication with Rice, his former protege. Scowcroft worked quietly behind the scenes to tone down the initial response. Bush Sr., who spent part of last week in Europe but could have been in secure contact with the White House through embassy phone hookups, has always thought of himself as an old China hand. As President, Bush often told his aides, "I know the Chinese"--and then rang up Beijing for a friendly chat. The habit drove advisers like Scowcroft crazy, not only because they couldn't keep track of what he said but also because Bush Sr. had a tendency to soft-pedal problems. As tensions rose last week, Bush aides began to hope that a family powwow was taking place. One of the many West Wing officials who worked for both father and son put it this way: "God, I hope he is talking to his father."

China had so much to lose by putting Bush in a corner that U.S. analysts found it hard to figure Beijing's motives. Why would Jiang stake so much on one spy plane? He could have fed the U.S. crew a nice Chinese meal and sent them home, earning all kinds of Western goodwill. Instead, he kept raising the stakes, demanding an apology before anyone had a chance to investigate the incident or debrief the pilots on either side.

Jiang's hard line revealed the weakness of his position at home. The crisis hit at the most delicate moment in his career since he took power after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. More than anyone else, he was responsible for restoring U.S.-China relations after that uprising. But Jiang turns 75 this year and is likely to resign his position at a party conference in the fall of 2002. The question is, Who will replace him and his allies, and which, if any, of his current titles will he be allowed to keep? So far he has fared badly, failing to maneuver his followers into key spots or secure a position for himself. His opponents, especially among military hard-liners, consider him too soft, too willing to submit to U.S. demands. So when word of the midair collision reached his home in the cloistered Zhongnanhai leadership compound in central Beijing, Jiang seized his chance to consolidate power by acting tough.

He wasn't the only one who saw an opportunity and took it. The Chinese military has been feeling sensitive ever since a high-level officer defected to the U.S. last December. Jiang has forced the People's Liberation Army to withdraw from many of its lucrative business enterprises, though he has tried to raise morale by boosting defense spending 18% this year. But many officers still feel that China has grown too chummy with the U.S. They resent the U.S. surveillance flights along the Chinese coastline--something the U.S. would never tolerate on its borders--and they resent the fact that the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Japan could defeat China's entire navy. "The military likes to have an enemy, and that's how it sees the U.S.," says a former Chinese official who had close contacts with the army. "It will insist that Jiang hang tough."

Though authoritarian leaders are supposed to be immune to polls and popular will, Jiang also had to worry about the Chinese public. Anger at the U.S. could easily twist into fury at him for failing to defend the motherland. "If Mao Zedong were the leader today, he would have shot down the American plane," says Li Hua, a physics student from Shanghai, who counts KFC as her favorite takeout. "But our leaders now don't have the guts to get in a fight." At first this incident looked like a reprise of the Belgrade embassy bombing. Anyone watching the official newscasts was led to believe that the U.S. plane had intentionally caused the collision. Variations on KILL THE IMPERIALIST AMERICAN PIGS littered Chinese Internet message boards. But during the street demonstrations that followed the Belgrade bombing, the leaders learned how hard it could be to control a passionate crowd and feared that anger could turn inward. This time anti-U.S. demonstrations were forbidden and posters taken down.

Even before the collision, anger at the U.S. was running high. Beijing felt that the Bush Administration had failed to give China credit for new policies designed to reach out to Washington. In November, China agreed to control its missile exports, but Bush condemned it for selling a communications cable to Iraq. In January, China adopted a less threatening policy toward Taiwan; Bush still might sell Aegis air-defense radar to the island. If he does, "relations with the U.S. could worsen permanently, and Jiang will lose the greatest pillar of his legitimacy," says an Asian diplomat in Beijing. Last month China dispatched foreign policy mandarin Qian Qichen to Washington to patch up relations; Bush chose to receive Japan's doomed Prime Minister first, underscoring Tokyo's privileged position. "I'm frustrated," says a Chinese foreign policy adviser criticized by leaders for being too pro-U.S. "China might pay a price, but the Bush Administration needs to be taught a lesson."

Of course, nothing is that simple. Last year Beijing enjoyed a trade surplus of $83 billion with the U.S., its top export market, and U.S. businesses invested about $4 billion in China. These investors have become Beijing's most useful lobbyists in Washington. They thwarted Clinton's initial plan to link China's trade status with human rights and helped win Washington's support for China's entry into the World Trade Organization. China needs that relationship because, to some extent, the leadership's power rests on rising living standards that depend on growing trade.

If Bush and Jiang faced similar internal crosswinds, they did so within very different time frames. The Chinese have been waiting 50 years for Japan to apologize for its conduct in World War II. Bush is living in a 24-hour news cycle, in which impatience is a virtue. "Bush's tough instincts were right," says a Republican lobbyist, "but they were counterproductive. He should have known that the Chinese don't respond well to bluster." It would have been better, say several G.O.P. foreign policy veterans, to be belligerent in private and play a sweeter song in public. "By saying we won't apologize," says a veteran, "we set the bar way too high."

By Wednesday, you could hear the nuance sliding back into Washington's official statements. At a meeting that morning in the Oval Office, Bush told his advisers he wanted to find a "way out." Senior staff members brought up whether Bush should go ahead as planned and throw out the first pitch at a baseball game Friday. Would that look too frivolous if the servicemen and -women were still detained? "We're going," said Bush immediately. His advisers agreed. "He's sending a clear message that this is serious, but his schedule is not going to change," said a White House official. "Government business goes on."

It took until Wednesday night for the diplomats to finally get to work. "We aren't talking past each other anymore," said a senior State Department official. "We're not spitting in each other's faces quite so much." Officials were pulling all-nighters on both ends. Powell was called at 2:30 a.m. Thursday for an update.

It was Powell who finally splashed through the verbal puddles and repeated for the cameras his earlier, little noticed expression of "regret" for the loss of the Chinese plane and pilot. The letter that accompanied his statement signaled even more movement. It raised the possibility of a joint investigation into what had happened or an exchange of explanations. "Once we said 'regret' and 'exchange explanations,' they came back to us still saying 'apologize, investigate,' but also saying, 'Let's discuss how this can work.' Now they're talking mechanisms," said the State Department official.

By Thursday, when Bush stood before a bundle of newspaper editors, he was broadening his vocabulary. While affirming that China was a "competitor," he added, "But that doesn't mean we can't find areas in which we can partner. The economy's a place where we can partner." Progress picked up Friday as the diplomats began hammering out language for an exchange of drafts of a letter that might pave the way for the crew's release. When Bush met with Rice and Cheney to dissect the regret/apology language for the letter to be signed by Ambassador Joseph Prueher, he wanted everyone in the room to know that he would have the final word on whatever they came up with. "If I don't like what the letter says, it's not going," he told Rice. Later, when Sealock briefed Bush and Powell on his latest talks with the Chinese, Bush made it clear that he didn't want to play the blame game. "We don't need to be pointing fingers," he said. "This is a delicate moment."

Still, the whole exercise put Bush at odds with some in Congress and the Pentagon who had no use for subtlety. "After we get our people out, we should denounce all these equivocal statements we made to spring them," a senior Navy officer griped. "And then we should bomb the damn plane on the tarmac." The White House saw that it was also still dealing with competing constituencies on the Chinese end. After 48 hours of thaw, Vice Premier Qian Qichen declared Saturday that the expressions of regret were "still unacceptable." The U.S., he said, must "apologize to the Chinese people. This is the key issue to solving the problem."

Former U.S. ambassador to China James Lilley says the whole standoff reveals the fault line in U.S.-China relations: "They have extended sovereignty; we have forward deployment." Clashes like this are going to happen until an arrangement similar to the one between the Soviets and Americans can be worked out. "This could be therapeutic, especially if it forces both sides to work out rules of engagement," Lilley says. "They don't want this to happen again, and we don't want it to happen again."

--Reported by Jay Branegan, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson and Mark Thompson/Washington, Hannah Beech/Hainan Island and Matthew Forney/Beijing

With reporting by Jay Branegan, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson and Mark Thompson/Washington, Hannah Beech/ Hainan Island and Matthew Forney/Beijing