No, mon frere, it’s “Do unto others before they do unto you.” And it’s America’s intelligence gathering capability that makes us a superpower, every bit as much as our military hardware does. It’s been that way for close on a century now. It did a lot to help us win WWII, in both theaters. You shouldn’t be complaining.
“Keeping an eye on your neighbor” is an accepted international practice. We’ve been doing it for years, and so have other nations, on us. Satellites, airplanes, ships and “other” means. It’s not personal, or hostile.
Just business. We understand this. The Russians understand this. France, GB, Canada, Japan, Israel, even the PRC; everyone understands this.
Does anyone here honestly believe that those Russian “fishing trawlers”, that used to (still do?) shadow our fleets, were fishing?
We’ve been watching PRC-China (among others) this way for years; they know it, everyone knows it. They know that we know that they know (a bit convoluted, but it makes sense; trust me).
The question before us is not “how?”, or “why?”.
Instead, ask why now?
There are a couple of things I heard on the news today that I haven’t seen brought up here:
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The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk was on its way to the area where the crash occurred. It’s not unreasonable to think that at least part of our plane’s mission was simply to scout out the area before our really valuable stuff showed up. If this is true, it makes us look much less sinister.
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Another concern that was raised about China’s getting their hands on our technology was that they may not only reverse engineer it for themselves, but then sell or even give it to other countries, like Iraq. Yeah, I think we have reason to be concerned.
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It was also pointed out that the USSR used to routinely send planes down our east coast. We, in turn, would send up fighters to shadow them. So don’t tell me China is just doing what we would have done if we found a plane off our coast. We did find spy planes off our coast all the time and let them be.
Call me naive, but I honestly don’t think we would behave this way if a Chinese plane crashed on our soil. We may try to search for a loophole to justify getting inside the plane, but the fact is that international law states that we should treat that plane like a soverign piece of the country that owns it, and if we broke that law without a darned good reason, there would be hell to pay. China hasn’t even bothered with making up a pretense, which is really a slap in the face.
You know, if I were paranoid, I could come up with a pretty scary scenario for all this. It’s certainly possible, given the current information, that the plane was taken down intentionally. If so, why? What was China up to that they were willing to risk a major incident to keep us from seeing?
If I were paranoid, of course.
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If China doesn’t want people to listen to their broadcast then they need to make sure their radio waves stay within their own borders. Yeah, I know that’s a rather silly idea. But if you’re in international air space you’re not doing anything wrong by listening to their broadcast.
Marc
How do we know for sure that the US plane was in international airspace? For all we know, some insane newspaper tycoon could have interfered with the GPS signal to send it off course. 
I’m going to take issue with this, Flymaster, and no offense is intended…
According to a news report I caught last night the crew had approximately 15-30 minutes from the time of the incident to the time they landed to complete destruction procedures. Those procedures include shredding documents and cryptologic keys and taking hammer and chisel to sensitive gear. And, of course, while you’re doing this, you’re preparing for bail-out of a plane flying at a couple of thousand feet.
I find your recommendation of a ‘significant internal investigation’ a little harsh.
As to the rest of this thread? War’s not going to happen. The Gulf of Tonkin incident has been running through my head, but I find no similar parallels here. But I do fully expect an extreme cold spell in China/US relations that will cause some serious economic problems for the US unless the Chinese allow our serivcemen return home pronto.
Irckle. I really should’ve read both pages before my previous post.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Collounsbury *
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Back engineer it. They’re not stone age primitives.
Collunsbury, with all due respect - have you ever been inside a P3? There’s nothing there that you can’t pick up a better version of at Radio Shack. It’s not the gear that’s important; it’s the information. And the information gathered on a short hop over the South China Sea is, quite frankly, not much.
Although…the collective information of the 24 brains on that plane? That’s priceless. And that’s what worries me most.
My, aren’t we brave sitting in our arm chair while other people provide our protection for us. Why should 23 people kill themselves so some primitives can’t get a look at one of our toys? In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t at war with China. We aren’t in danger of 100,000 screaming Chinese “volunteers” pouring into Montana on rickshaws armed with old Soviet machineguns.
Maybe the plans to the Normandy invasion are worth protecting with your life. Some stupid crytography geer that will be obsolete in 18 months anyway is not. It’s not their “job” to kill themselves so some MIT geeks don’t have to come up with a new code machine.
I think you’ve been watching to many bullshit spy movies.
I don’t think that’s quite true, chique. As I understand it, the plane’s primary mission was to discern all the radar signals emanating from a rather interesting new destroyer the Chinese have just fitted out – interesting enough but even more so given the recently confirmed sale of US built destroyers to Taiwan (which cheered up the PRC no end).
On the wider issue, one hopes George understands the way to not impress the Chinese leadership is to make escalating public demands by wrenching up the rhetoric. The Chinese leadership simply can’t be seen to lose face to the US – to do so could have serious consequences for themselves.
I saw George’s public statement and was interested to see he is describing this as an “accident” (also that he wants the sevicemen and women returned) - I think that’s a good indication that he understands what the Chinese need.
No one seems to have mentioned in this thread the grieving family of the dead pilot – if it was an accident my sincere condolences go to them.
As an aside, it is at least interesting to note that (as far as I can see), very unusually – if not uniquely – the US has not garnered any vocal support from the international community for it’s position. I read this as likely being a diplomatic cold shoulder in the wake of Kyoto or collective sensitivity re the Chinese position on losing face – probably a little of both.
Things are warming up for George. Anyone know the Chinese for “backdoor concessions on those Taiwan destroyers” ?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by msmith537 *
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I thought we were having a rather good discussion up to this point. I hope the others in this thread can overlook this kind of rude bleating and carry on with it.
Anyway . . .
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that the crew should have deliberately taken action that would result in certain death. Not even Francis Gary Powers took the cyanide capsule provided in his U2 pilot’s kit–although there were people who criticized him for not committing suicide once he crashed in Soviet territory. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that demanding that individuals knowingly go into situations where they must die kind of goes against what this country is all about. Risk one’s life, yes, but we don’t employ kamikaze tactics.
Jumping in just to say that WHY China is holding the plane and crew isn’t really important in the long haul…What Mr. Bush and his back up crew of ancient Republicans (Rumsfeld and the Veep, both cold warrior vets.) do about this situation is important, at least to me. You see, I think it has been beginning to look like this new administration wants to ISOLATE us from the rest of the world and THUMB OUR NOSES at just about anyone else we can. Reminds me of a bully in a bar fight. Wonder why those guys always pick on the biggest most dangerous guy in the place to start a bitch match?
And I know that HALF the country is loving this shit. The chest thumping, hand over our guys or we’ll be pissed tactic. Because Texas George and his posse are in charge around here now and we’ve got a big ego, big guns and a small brain.
Funny too, old Georgie Porgie actually has to do some real “presidenting” right here before the honeymoon is even over. Can’t ride the tax cut coat tail anymore. Got more pressing matters to attend to now. Funny how the rest of the world just seeps in like smoke under the door, even if you try to close and lock it.
Needs2know
I live in Shanghai and I can tell you the biggest concern people have here is if this incident is going to negatively affect the Chinese stock markets. Probably not much different than the average American. Certainly, the government is not bussing students in to stone the American consulate, nor are there spontaneous boycotts of McD’s or anything like they did back when the embassy was bombed.
One common thread running through this post is that the Chinese don’t respect international law or territory. From a Chinese point of view, rightly or wrongly, many specific international laws are not something the Chinese have ever agreed to. Now, when the US uses the argument that China is in the wrong because of violations of “international law” or “international standards” and said “international laws” coincide with the US argument, well naturally the Chinese will tend to disagree. The Chinese point being, who’s international law are you going to use? Remember, China has also had it’s share of colonization by the west, with numerous international settlements up until 1949 and of course Hong Kong until 1997.
Now, I’m not trying to be an apologist for the Chinese, and certainly their territorial claims are thinner than the paint on a fake Rolex. Since the Chinese claim most of the Pacific as their territory, it’s pretty hard not to violate their air space.
A lot of the troubles between the US and China stem from very different reference points. China is a global economic player, and an Asian military power. The sooner Bush realizes that the US and China need to arrive at a working accommodation the better.
Not sure if I believe the Taiwanese citing unnamed military sources about the plane being forced down with machine guns. Look at a map. Seems to me the nearest airfield was Hainan island although they could have tried to land in Viet Nam.
I also see some pretty lame Chinese stereotypes in this thread. msmith537: Primitives, rickshaws, Build their own version out of bamboo shoots. WTF?
As for the crew. Well, Sanya where some of them are staying is the “Hawaii of China” and quite pleasant. Although the waves simply aren’t big enough to surf and that might be construed as torture.
During the Cold War it was a weekly occurrence for Soviet bombers to violate Canadian airspace and be intercepted by Canadian fighters, who would escort the bomber out. Nobody ever got shot down or knocked down. Well, that we know of.
Thanks China Guy…makes perfect sense to me. (BTW the “bamboo shoot” references etc. they weren’t stereotypical, just inane and completely stupid.) I’d also like to add that it makes a little bit of sense to me that China would consider themselves a little more entitled to the air space in Asia. It is after all their hemisphere. I wonder when the last time any of us Americans had to dodge a Chinese spy plane as it landed on our house.
Needs2know
Needs2Know:
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I agree! Why was our 737-sized, propellered airplane bullying those Chinese fighter jets that came rocketing into international airspace to fly within feet of it?
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Would this put you in the “HALF the country” saying, “Keep our service men and women as long as you’d like, China. Just let us know when you’re done with them?”
Is that an unfair characterization of your opinion? Perhaps you should keep that in mind when you do the exact same thing with the opinion of “HALF the country,” particularly when you are portraying yourself as somehow above that half.
Eh, of course not, I do economics and biosciences, not spying. I had assumed with all the alarmist talk about the equipment and up-to-dateness etc. ad nauseum that there was something on board which we would care that they care about.
If not, then… well big deal.
Given the reports I see no reason to get my undies in a bunch. They play a little detention game – just like we would under another name, say debriefing or whatever, just to fuck with us a little – take their time returning the place. Meanwhile the crew gets a South China Sea vacation and a big of paid leave time and probably an op to do speeches or whatnot in their hometowns.
I don’t know why some folks here piously think the US has not done and would not do the same thing. See the Mig 25 example. So Smeghead, yes I call you naive, above all for the taken down intentionally silliness insofar as all reports seem to agree the issue was probably the Chinese pilot’s error.
All in all, it’s just an accident, each side pursing its interests. I see no reason for all this stupid Cold War talk. Nor the silly kid talk either. Chill. It’s part of the good old spying game.
It seems to me that Flymaster and super_head are suggesting just that.
Hey China Guy - Which international law is China opposed to? The law that states other countries can opperate their aircraft over international waters, the law that allows damaged aircraft to make an emergancy landings whereever an airport is available, or the law that treats state owned aircraft as sovereign territory? All these laws seem reasonable to me.
And what is Asian concept of always having to “save face”? Is this just something from the movies or does Chinese, Japanese, etc culture really value saving face above all else?
If that is the case, it seems ridiculous to me that China would risk relations with one of their largest trading partners (as well as the rest of the world) in order to avoid looking like they are caving into Western pressure.
Milo . Do I really have to point out to you that I agree with some of what you say, but am suggesting that you ratchet the rhetoric back a notch? Apparently.
Do we know where the incident occured? No. Our folks say in international waters, they say not. Neither side has a stellar record on truth, especially in the early stages of the process. It may in fact turn out that we were in universally recognized International waters. My only point to you was it was not beneficial to assume any facts not in evidence. Why is this a difficult concept to you? Jeeze. And, again, your tone about international politics aside, why is it necessary that I often get to deal with things like
Every single nation considers international waters an important point. China extends their concept larger than any others, apparently, but what has that got to do with my point that the plane may have, in fact, actually been in what is **universally ** considered China’s airspace? Nothing. Just another chance for Milo to do a cheap shot. Once you start on that road, it’s easier for folks to be dismissive of the rest of your points.
Your points about prior bad acts of aggression on China have nothing to do with where the damn plane was then, now do they? They may have something to do with why our planes would be wanting to nudge their airspace, though.
FTR, I am NOT ‘immediately dismissing the assertion’ of US officials, But, in contrast to you, I am also not immediately dismissing the possability that they may not have all the info, may have reason to supress it or may just be wrong, either. I’m leaving both options wide open. It’s difficult to see evidence when you’re not looking for it.
as far as
Offensive, thank you. I am more pro-American than you could possibly know. I had the opportunity to visit Romania and Checksoloakia in 72, and came away with a real appreciation for my country. That having been said, I am also not in favor of automatically agreeing with every stance our leaders take on our behalf, and am able to acknowledge that there have been times when our citizens and solidiers have done things that were wrong. (Some of the situations in VietNam and Korea come to mind).
Milo you keep insisting that every comparison must be matched point for point ("Show me where any one else did this exact same thing) they don’t work that way. For example, in this case, the PRC have taken offense (ie, considered it a provocative action) that our SoS called Taiwan ‘the Republic of China’ (see my link previously given). now, how does that compare to ships? It doesn’t, except in level of percieved wrong. So, do we dismiss it? I wouldn’t, because the pertinant issue is that China considered it to be a provocation. Now, I could just as easily say to you "prove to me where a high ranking Chinese official has named South Carolina as “America” in public statemsnts, and demand that since you cannot demonstrate it happened, that therefore your point is wrong, but I won’t. The point was made that both sides have committed provocative acts.
) well the official tone has come down, probably due to the more experienced folks giving direction about how international diplomacy works. However, the tone in your OP was what concerned me, since you often nail the tone of many conservatives on the street. For example, this am on the ride in to work, the local DJ was telling folks that he, personally was going to boycott Chinese Restaurants til our guys (which of course includes the female personnel) come home. I’m not sure what effect he thought that would have on the PRC, but unfortunately, probably at least some of his listening audience will say ‘uh huh, so will I’, and some local little small businesses will suffer due to ignorance.
well, at least we have you accurately pegged, then. Good to know.
really? we tolerate that? would really like some evidence that we tolerate buzzing of our airspace. We certainly patrol the hell out of our waterways between here and Cuba. So there’s subs, and we are no doubt ‘aggressive’ in our attention to them, too, right?
It’s interesting to me that you don’t think my stance of “well, let’s see what shakes out” is a good one, but you seem happy to note that the ‘tone’ internationally has subsided. Do you think that’s due to saber rattling or a more diplomatic approach?
Is there a clear right and wrong in some cases? of course. But they’re not nearly so common as you seem to believe.
and if, for example, if the rest of the evidence shows that not only were we in their airspace, that we clipped one of their planes and tried to escape, but then knowingly denied that we were in, well then, again, I guess we can say with confidence that we were in the wrong. What I see as evidence at present are statements issued by both parties claiming they’re in the right. You give more weight to our side, I understand that. I’m willing to say ‘let’s wait to assign blame until we have more than both interested parties word on it’. when more comes in, fine.
You asked for cites about how other countries felt about minute aspect c of this situation. Sorry, I don’t control the international press and could not order them to ask the question and provide the results. I gave links to news sources that I found with other responses. the additional snipe
was unneccessary. I did a search of news agencies and Google. reported what I found. It is your continued refusal to attempt to see both sides of an issue that is troublesome. Even if it turns out one side is 95% right and 5% wrong, it is important to see that other 5% and not deny it’s existence.
International airspace my big fat toosh! Let a Chinese spy plane come within 200 miles of our hemisphere! It just isn’t done now is it. But we’re over there buzzing around protecting our interests in Taiwan now aren’t we? Come on! Let’s get real here. So the Chinese are getting a little territorial, they do live there you know! It’s Asia, not North American. Let’s not be hypocrits here. Can we use Taiwan and American Imperialism in the same sentence class? Yes, I’m sure we can! So let’s not start moralizing about China, at least they share the continent with them.
Give me a big fat break. If we are going to go snooping around on the other side of the world then when we get caught we should be a little bit contrite. Not swagger around like a bunch of fools, here knock this firewood off my shoulder!
Oh that’s right we have nothing to fear! We’re the most honored and beloved country on the planet. These last couple of months under this new administration have seen great strides in improving our relationships with the rest of the world. Everyone loves us and scrambles for our favor.
And our military, our best trained forces in the world! We don’t make mistakes. We don’t bomb other people’s embassies, or kill their high school kids out on a fishing expedition.
Aren’t you guys just a little bit worried about how this is being handled. Let’s forget about Japan, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Soviets for right now. We can deal with how we’ve pissed them all off later. Are you guys all so hyped up for another cold war? Is that why we all voted for President John Wayne and his cabinet full of ancient Republicans? We needed to piss off the rest of the world so we can all come together again as a nation?! Or were they bored? Is that it, Bush has no foreign policy and that’s all his mentors know? Rumsfled and Heart Smart needed something to do besides pass him crib notes?
I’m done. I don’t want to debate this, I just hope the 24 come home safely. It won’t be the first time we’ve had egg on our face. Lately from a global perspective it looks like we’ve been operating a chicken ranch.
Needs2know
Needs2Know, some of what you say does make sense but one item needs to picked at;
Huh? Taiwan is a democracy now, a democratic nation that the PRC would smash flat if they thought they could get away with it. It has nothing to do with “American Imperialism.” Remember the war exercises during the March 1996 Taiwnaese election, when China fired missiles just off Taiwan to show their displeasure at Lee Tung-Hui being reelected? Taiwan needs our protection from PRC aggression. Despite our flaws, including electing President Knucklehead (thanks again, Nader voters), the US is a democracy, China is an authoritarian state. Do you know what would happen to you if you were to dis the government in China? You would have to change your nick to Needs 2 Get Out of Prison! If you knew anything of Chinese history, you would not be so sure about which nation is imperialist. Go to your library and check out The Making of Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence. You will find it enlightening. Actually, any of Spence’s books on China is a great read.
And msmith537, you need to learn something about China and the rest of East Asia for that matter before you blow your mouth off about 'primitives" and “bamboo.” We really don’t need a lot of “Yellow Peril” racist rhetoric.
clouding up the real issue.