China's got our men and our plane

Great Debates
1

I see this as very serious, and I’m surprised at how little interest it seems to be sparking. This could have the makings of another Cuban Missile Crisis-style standoff, if things don’t rapidly take a different tone than they have right now.

As noted here, U.S. diplomats are not being allowed to see the crew. They’ve been told that they can tomorrow. This is a direct thumbing of the nose at President Bush, who called for expedient contact with the American service people.

It appears pretty clear that the U.S. plane was in international airspace. The Chinese jet very aggressively engaged the plane, leading to the bumping incident that caused the plane’s emergency landing on a Chinese island.

According to the news reports I’m seeing, this is pretty much standard operating procedure for the Chinese military, which frequently engages our boats and planes in an aggressive, provocative way, even when we’re not in their water or air space.

According to the news reports, the Chinese military has boarded the plane, and is likely learning much about very sensitive surveillance equipment of our’s. This is a violation of international rules of sovereignty. According to the linked article, they are supposed to honor that plane as they would a U.S. Embassy.

(You’re probably waiting for a debate, right? Here it is.)

WTF is China doing? What should Bush do?

What do we do if they don’t let us see our men and women tomorrow? What if they don’t give us our plane back?

What if they don’t let the service people leave in a timely manner? What if they put them on trial, imprison or execute them, as at least some Chinese citizens are apparently calling for?

Why do we continue to tolerate the Chinese military’s acts of aggression? Why do we continue to pretend like they are our allies and business partners, and that the anti-American and anti-Taiwan rhetoric coming out of Beijing regularly has no meaning?

At what point do their actions in this current standoff become an act of war, if ever?

2

Well, it’s possible they still might be slightly peeved that we bombed the shit out of their embassy.

Our servicemen are pretty smart and tough. I’m sure the Chinese won’t get too much of value out of that plane, other than a good look see.

They’ll posture and pose a bit to make them feel better, and because they think it makes them look good.

Then they’ll give the plane and the men back.

They’re just playing PR games.

3

Hey, where have you been. These days, we don’t declare war over people, planes or principles. They’ve got to threaten our oil like Iraq did.

4

I agree that it’s very serious. The news reports I saw reflected the words of the US ambassador to China urging (wait, I’d better link it to make sure I have the word correct) patience when dealing with the Chinese.

Even if it happened in INternational waters, there still is the issue of who was at fault for the collision. our folks assert that they were, they, naturally think we were. As far as I’ve seen, there is yet any empiracle evidence one way or the other. Here

Certainly there was some recent difficulties with China (there’s the sale of arms to Taiwan There’s an American resident who’s being detained.

So, certainly these are precarious times.

What should he do? I’d suggest listening to the experts in the area. I would hope that he would.

What is China doing? well, Milo I suspect that they are acting consitent with a sense that they’re being threatened by another nation. One of their planes crashed, their pilot is lost, they think we’re at fault. Recent meetings between Bush and their leaders had serious overtones, they’re very unhappy with us, we’re not that thrilled with them.

What do I think China should do? Release our soldiers immediately and allow us to retrieve them and the plane without further ado (just in case you thought I was taking their side). Course, they have yet to ask for my advice.

5

China will likely take the opportunity to extract whatever advantage they can from the situation. They really have Bush over a barrel as there is very little he can do without hurting American interests.

6

One thing’s certain - this thing won’t lead to a war. Nations don’t fight wars because of honor or individual lives - oh sure, often they use this sort of thing as an excuse to start fighting, but that’s only if at least one side of the matter really wants a war.

Does the U.S. want to start a war with China?

Nah.

Does China want to start a war with the U.S.?

I doubt it. They can’t win, in the long run.

So now we just wait for the diplomats to make this whole thing blow over. Don’t worry - it’s what they do for a living.

7

I think right now the world is the U.S.A’s bitch, and to keep it that way we are going to have to start administering some bitch-slaps. I think if they don’t give us our plane and people back we should nuke the base they are keeping it at, and threaten to start nuking a city a day until they apologize.

8

Glad to see your taking this seriously, Badtz. :rolleyes:

9

One would hope that there will be a significant internal investigation into the actions of the crew of the American plane, and perhaps a court martial.

AFAIK, and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s standard orders to destroy as much of the electronics as possible on board, and, from what I’ve read, this doesn’t seem to have happened. If they handed over these valuable electronics WITHOUT trying to destroy them, I would hope there would be lots of questions asked.

That said, the Chinese should definetly hand over the plane and crew immediately. It’s our plane, our crew, and the incident occured in international airspace. It seems clear that it was the Chinese’s fault.

10

I’ve been playing Black and White with an Old Testament playstyle too much, I guess.

11

I would think that the chinese are simply testing to see how far Bush will go. So Bush should do some actual things instead of posturing, the first impression is always the most important.:slight_smile:

I think that we act like they are our allies because we essentially have kept them together for 100 years just to trade with them. We want to trade with them, therefore we will. The more we are willing to deal with aggression and the more aggressive we are the more likely China will trade favorably with us, unless we go too far and they declare war.

12

your = you’re

wring:

**
Not just our personnel, but common sense, indicates the Chinese were at fault.

The U.S. plane is about the size of a 737, and about as maneuverable. The Chinese maintain the U.S. plane “veered suddenly” and struck the jet. Which is more maneuverable, a large aircraft with propellers or fighter jets? And if contact was initiated by our large, slow-moving, slow-maneuvering aircraft changing directions, would that not indicate that the Chinese fighter jets were dangerously close to it?

This is far from the first provocative action China’s military has taken against aircraft and Navy and other sea vessels in the area. China recognizes essentially all of the South China Sea as its territorial waters and airspace (as noted here and here). The international community does not recognize these claims.

13

Has anyone yet mentioned the possibility of just blowing the plane up where it sits? There’s bound to be naval vessels in the area with more Tomahawks than sense. Granted, the idea smacks of apocalypse-grade foolishness, but perhaps we have some other way to just fry the plane. EMP, remote destruct or some such thing.

That would also leave the crew in limbo…

14

China is doing exactly what the U.S. would do if their roles were reversed.

Sure, the Chinese fighter jet was probably responsible for the mid-air collision. Sure, the U.S. plane was making an emergency landing on the nearest available airstrip. But now, if you’re China, a spy plane belonging to your sort-of-enemies has just landed within your borders! Of course you’re going to detain them for a few days, look the plane over, sort things out, make sure they’re not stealing any of your Ancient Chinese Secrets[sup]1[/sup] or leaving any nasty presents behind like anthrax or a nuclear device, and then, when you’re sure everything is on the up-and-up, you’ll let the plane and its occupants go. It would be foolish to assume that we would do otherwise in that situation.
[sup]1) Such as Calgon.[/sup]

15

From the looks of the planes involved, I really can’t imagine how the US plane could cause a collision. It’s a big, slow, unmaneuverable prop plane. Seems to me like seeing an accident between a car and a street cleaner. Sure, the street cleaner could have been reckless, but a car should still have been able to avoid it effortlessly. I guess we’ll get all the facts later (not that our military has generally been totally forthcoming on embarassing details, but we get the whole story eventually) and be able to figure out what happened.

I’m figuring that if the servicemen on the plane didn’t destroy the electronics, it’s because they believed (or were told) that China would respect the plane’s sovereignty. After all, China isn’t supposed to be our enemy, and would probably make a fuss if we treated them like one. As for what to do now, that’s why diplomats make pretty good money, 'cause most of us would fuck everything up even more.

16

Who knows, maybe they’re keeping the crew on the plane just in case some event like that were to happen. Oops, you just blew up 24 of your own men too, America - ouch.

A bigger question in my mind is why the hell did they land in China? Hmm, I’ve got this plane full of super sensitive, classified spying electronics, and I need to put down - hmmm, China sounds like a good place, they’re usually so upstanding and tolerant of dissidents and such.

I would like to think, were I in their shoes, that plane would now be sitting at the bottom of the ocean in international waters with a fleet of Navy ships standing guard over it.

I imagine someone’s head will roll when this is all over.

Unless, of course, the Illuminati planned it this way.

17

I rather imagine so.

Scylla has the thing on the nose.

Ditto to Tracer’s comments, I imagine they’re taking a good look-see. And we would to for all the pious posturing (which of course we have to do mind you.).

18

Perhaps the crew members didn’t want to die.

The Chinese do seem to be in violation of international law, and if there is a clear violation there should be retaliation. However, our own actions weren’t completely innocent. The whole reason the plane was there was to eavesdrop on the Chinese, and of course it’s the US side that we’re hearing. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be another Tonkin Gulf incident.

19

The plane was obviously spying on China, which means that even if it was in international airspace, the Chinese had some legitimate reason to consider it a threat. Would the US take no action if a Chinese spy plane was camped 50 miles of the California coast?

The Chinese pilot is missing, presumed dead. The US aircraft survived the collision and landed safely. If the Chinese pilot did deliberately cause the collision, it was essentially a kamikaze attack, not a tactic previously employed by the Chinese airforce. I think it’s far more likely that it was a genuine accident, probably contributed to by recklessness on one or both parts.

As far as I can see, this is not so much like the Gulf of Tonkin incident or the Cuban misile crisis as the U2 incident which IIRC was resolved fairly amicably.

20

Spy ships are regularly planted closer to american shores than 50 miles. They are the reason that Reagan extended the international boundary from 3 to 12 miles in 1988.