U.S. Sees Signs of Progress in China Standoff

The Bush administration said Monday that it saw small but encouraging signs of movement in the spy plane standoff, citing improved conditions for the 24 U.S. crew members and acknowledgment by China’s state-controlled media that negotiations for their release are underway.

The tentative signals followed a fourth meeting between U.S. diplomats and members of the detained crew on southern Hainan island and a slight easing of China’s public characterization of the standoff.

In Beijing, U.S. Ambassador Joseph W. Prueher, the lead American negotiator, told reporters, “We hope we are moving a little closer toward a solution.”

In Washington, a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added: “I have a feeling we’re in the endgame, but I’m not sure how long it will last. With the Chinese, the endgame can last a long time. They get all they’re going to get, and then they go back and try to get more. Our job right now is to tell them they have all they’re going to get.”

The Chinese may not see it that way, at least not for public consumption. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Monday that U.S. statements so far “are still unacceptable to the Chinese people.”

“We are highly unsatisfied,” he told a news conference in Buenos Aires, where he is accompanying President Jiang Zemin. The Chinese leader is on a tour of Latin America.

“We ask the United States to take responsibility for this incident in a clear and active way by apologizing to the Chinese people. We think this is the key to solving the problem,” Zhu said.

Bush administration officials said they are using a three-pronged approach to try to win release of the 21 men and three women, who will mark their 10th day in detention today. The three steps involve an expression of regret over the incident and sorrow for the loss of the Chinese pilot who collided with the U.S. plane, an exchange of explanations for the collision, and arrangements for talks on issues of mutual concern, mediated by a maritime commission formed in 1998.

At this point, the negotiations center largely on the exchange of explanations, according to U.S. officials.

Prueher, who met twice with Chinese Foreign Ministry officials Monday, is now involved in “many intense conversations,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. “They are working on language, they are working on wording.”

Diplomacy, Fleischer said, is “always a search for words and agreements to resolve, peacefully, difficult, contentious matters. And that is the essence of diplomacy, and it is underway.”

The State Department said that “very intense discussions” between U.S. and Chinese diplomats in Beijing had reached a “sensitive moment.”

The 24-hour “rolling diplomacy” is taking place almost entirely in China, which has proved to be a more effective place than Washington to do the “detailed work” now in progress, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

President Bush’s letter to the wife of the missing Chinese pilot, drafted over the weekend, was to be delivered overnight Monday, U.S. officials said. The White House characterized it as a personal communication unrelated to the diplomatic choreography, although it will be delivered to the Beijing government to give to the pilot’s wife.

Bush acknowledged that diplomacy requires patience, but he warned of the dangers ahead for China if the crew is not released soon.

“All of us around this table understand diplomacy takes time. But there is a point, the longer it goes, there’s a point at which our relations with China could become damaged,” Bush said during a morning Cabinet meeting, with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sitting at his side.

Bush said he had spoken with Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock, the American military attache in China, after the general’s 40-minute meeting with the crew of the U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane.

“His report is that their spirits are very high, that they’re doing well. And that’s good news,” Bush told reporters.

The administration was also encouraged that Monday’s meeting with the crew did not involve extensive negotiations and red tape. Sealock was allowed to meet with all 24 crew members, in contrast with the visit early Sunday, when only eight crew members were allowed to participate. And he was not required to submit to hours of talks with Chinese officials over “ground rules” for the meeting.

U.S. officials in Washington said crew members have told diplomats in China that the EP-3 reconnaissance plane was flying straight and level when it collided with the Chinese F-8 fighter jet. Chinese planes were maneuvering close to the U.S. plane in a manner that the crew considered unsafe, the officials said.

The crew members’ accounts seem to corroborate previous U.S. characterizations of the probable circumstances surrounding the collision.

Sealock said housing conditions for the crew were comfortable and clean. “That includes things like air conditioning. They’re very clean; it is a hotel environment,” Sealock said. “They’ve been able to clean their uniforms and do all those sorts of things. They are being well taken care of.”

The crew has received e-mail sent by family members and toiletries bought by a team of U.S. diplomats now deployed on Hainan island.

Off the island, the search for the missing Chinese pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Wang Wei, continued to come up empty. American and Chinese analysts say that the U.S. crew might not be released until Beijing finally announces Wang’s fate. China’s state-run media are beginning to report that the chances of Wang’s survival are slim.

In Washington, the State Department said questioning of the crew by Chinese officials had decreased from last week. The crew members are now allowed to wander among their rooms and talk with one another. They have not, however, been allowed to receive books or newspapers, the department said.

Monday’s meeting began about 8 p.m.; the first three visits took place late at night or in the early morning. The third visit, for example, did not begin until 1 a.m. and only after more than three hours of negotiations with local Chinese officials.

In another indication of a slight easing of tensions, China’s state-run media reported for the first time on the diplomatic activity to bring the standoff to an end. Monday evening’s national newscast acknowledged that multiple rounds of talks had taken place between Prueher and Chinese officials.

Previous media coverage was restricted to the official public statements of Chinese and U.S. leaders, with no reference to back-channel diplomacy.

The New China News Agency repeated the Chinese demand for an apology, as did Chinese residents interviewed on newscasts. But also for the first time, some Chinese interviewed said the situation should not drag on.

In general, the official media were less strident Monday than just a day earlier, when an editorial in the military’s newspaper, the Liberation Army Daily, asserted the Beijing regime’s right to question the U.S. crew members and inspect the plane.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials expressed concern about the reported detention of another Chinese intellectual with U.S. connections on suspicion of divulging state secrets. Tan Guangguang, who holds permanent U.S. residency, taught at Stanford, the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1992. He works for the American United Medical Group in Beijing.

Tan was picked up in December, according to a report issued Monday by the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. He is expected to be formally charged soon, the organization said.

The State Department said it had no information beyond what was contained in the report. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing would look into the matter, it said, even though Tan is not a U.S. citizen.

About 20 Americans are being held or are imprisoned in China, many, but not all, for alleged criminal offenses, according to U.S. officials.

On Feb. 11, Gao Zhan, a Chinese-born sociologist at American University in Washington, was detained and has since been charged with spying.

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Wright reported from Washington and Chu from Beijing. Staff writers Edwin Chen and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.