The recent collision of a Chinese fighter pilot with a U.S. spy plane has underscored the complexities that exist when it comes to U.S.-China relations. As Newsweek’s popular Conventional Wisdom (CW) noted: “The spy-plane crisis illuminated complexities in U.S.-China relations. CW is in no mood to apologize, but wonders just how mad we’d be if the roles were reversed” (Begun et al, 8).
The collision demonstrated the Cold War-like mentality that still exists between the U.S. and China, including a stubborn refusal to show humility on both sides, paranoia, and fear. There are good reasons for such feelings on both sides. On the one hand, the U.S. pilot felt that the plane was being harassed by the Chinese pilot, and reaffirmed the validity of U.S. officials refusing to offer an apology for an unprovoked attack. The Chinese pilot, on the other hand, has been lionized by his government and called a protector of China’s seas and skies. Chinese and U.S. officials sharply disagree on U.S. policy to monitor the flight zone where the U.S. and Chinese planes collided. As Thomas and Liu (26) note “The two pilots and the two nations-collided. Exactly what happened is the subject of a dispute that could badly strain the already rocky relations between the world’s sole superpower and the Asian giant”.
After the collision, Chinese President Jiang Zemin insisted the U.S. must “bear full responsibility” for the collision and “he demanded an apology and called on Bush to halt all spy flights off the Chinese coast” (Thomas et al, 26). In the U.S., President Bush would only go as far to offer his “regret” about the death of Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot, and Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted the U.S. “has nothing to apologize for” (Thomas et al, 26). As the detainment, what some U.S. Congressmen called “hostage”, crisis continued, the U.S. let it be known that China’s bid to win membership to t...