Talks on Spy Flights ‘Very Productive,’ U.S. Official Says

Talks between the U.S. and China over American surveillance flights resumed today after Washington threatened to break off discussions because of a lack of progress.

The lead U.S. negotiator, Peter Verga, called today’s negotiations “very productive” after the two sides met early this afternoon for about two hours.

“We covered all the items on the agenda, and I found today’s session to be very productive,” Verga said in a brief statement after emerging from China’s Foreign Ministry.

His remarks stood in stark contrast to comments by U.S. officials just 12 hours earlier. Then, Washington bluntly described Wednesday’s opening talks as “not productive” and said there was no point in carrying on if Beijing refused to discuss the return of a Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane stranded in southern China since it collided with a Chinese fighter jet April 1.

Collapse of the talks was averted this morning after U.S. Ambassador Joseph W. Prueher met with Chinese officials to warn that the U.S. would not continue negotiations unless Beijing agreed to discuss the spy craft’s return.

Afterward, the U.S. decided to resume talks “based on our understanding that we will be allowed to complete all of the items on the agenda for the meeting that we agreed upon earlier, to include the development of a plan for the prompt recovery and return of our EP-3 aircraft,” Verga said.

The Chinese team had spent Wednesday’s tense 2 1/2-hour session reiterating Beijing’s demand that the U.S. halt surveillance missions off the Chinese coast. It also repeated its argument that the U.S. is entirely to blame for the midair collision that brought down the EP-3 and resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot.

U.S. officials expressed frustration at the tone of Wednesday’s meeting.

“When we and the Chinese can talk from the basis of fact rather than from a basis of rhetoric, we’re going to be better off,” National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on MSNBC television Wednesday.

Today’s discussions wrapped up this round of talks, and the U.S. delegation is due to return to Washington on Friday. It is not clear when further negotiations will be scheduled.

The talks were launched after a delicately worded letter from Prueher paved the way for the release last Thursday of the EP-3’s 24-member crew following 11 days in detention on Hainan. American officials had not expected China to simply turn over the plane, but they were optimistic about an understanding that the damaged $80-million aircraft would be returned eventually.

Now that the plane’s crew members are home, the Bush administration appears prepared to play diplomatic hardball with Beijing. This second standoff could turn into a test of wills and prove lengthy, U.S. officials conceded.

The dispute comes as the U.S. is finalizing plans for its annual arms sale to Taiwan, due to be announced early next week after talks with Taiwanese representatives in Washington.

U.S. Reportedly Backs Older Ships for Taiwan

President Bush’s principal national security advisors have recommended against the sale of the Pentagon’s most sophisticated destroyers to Taiwan, said U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as stipulated by government regulations.

Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have instead proposed to sell Taiwan a weapons package that includes older Kidd-class destroyers but not the newer Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, U.S. officials said.

The Burke-class ships are equipped with the Aegis radar and weapons system, designed to defend against 100 missiles and aircraft simultaneously. Taiwan has been seeking up to four of the ships, which cost $1 billion each. The Aegis system also could tie Taiwan into a proposed U.S. missile defense shield.

The sale of the destroyers with the Aegis system would anger China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province and considers such transactions as American meddling in an internal dispute. But U.S. officials believe that the Kidd destroyers are sufficient to protect Taiwan against submarines and other warships.

The Taiwanese are also seeking missiles, submarines and the Patriot short-range missile defense hardware.

This week’s meetings in Beijing bring together segments of the U.S. and China--namely, representatives from each nation’s military--that have historically been the most suspicious of the other side.

The U.S. delegation consists of six defense or military officials and only two civilians. It is being led by Verga, deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy support.

Lu Shumin, the lead Chinese negotiator, is in charge of the Foreign Ministry’s U.S. section. His team includes officials from the People’s Liberation Army, although Beijing has not given their names.

Lu said Wednesday that his government had “plenty of evidence” to show that the U.S. was at fault for the collision, which resulted in the death of the Chinese fighter pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Wang Wei, and an emergency landing by the EP-3 on Hainan in southern China. The Chinese have not responded to requests that they provide the evidence to Western reporters.

Washington’s assertions that Wang’s reckless flying tactics were to blame “do not hold water,” Lu said, according to the official New China News Agency.

‘We’ll Just Work Our Way Through This’

China’s state-run media continue to blast the United States as arrogant and highhanded. Newspapers accused U.S. leaders of acting humble and cooperative to secure the release of the crew, then “changing face” and adopting a hard-line attitude once the detained personnel had returned home.

Prueher acknowledged that the talks would be a tough diplomatic exercise. “We’ll just work our way through this,” he told reporters early Wednesday.

Prueher, a former admiral who was the chief U.S. negotiator in the standoff over the spy plane and its detained crew, is scheduled to leave his post in two weeks. Bush has nominated a Hong Kong-based attorney and former classmate, Clark Randt, to succeed Prueher.

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Chu reported from Beijing and Wright from Washington. Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.