Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [167]
As the twenty-four-member crew of the U.S. EP-3 neared the conclusion of their six-hour flight, they were intercepted by two PRC F-8 fighter jets, one of which maneuvered aggressively. After two increasingly dangerous passes, the Chinese pilot apparently miscalculated and flew into one of the EP-3’s propellers, delivering a fatal blow to the Chinese F-8 and shearing off our EP-3’s nose cone. With the nearest allied air base at least six hundred nautical miles away, the American crew had to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island, entering Chinese airspace.18 As they descended, the crew attempted to destroy the sensitive information and equipment that was onboard to protect American intelligence-gathering capabilities.
When the EP-3 landed, the Chinese government’s greeting was decidedly unfriendly. Armed Chinese soldiers interrogated the crew in the middle of the night and refused to allow them to send word of their fate to American officials.19 This was the hospitality of a nation whose pilot had almost killed two dozen American service members. The PRC’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported falsely about the incident. Instructing the Chinese people to “denounce U.S. hegemonist act,” the government asserted that the EP-3 “rammed and damaged a Chinese jet fighter.”† The Chinese government had effectively kidnapped an American crew and then lied to the world about it. Further, the Chinese were demanding that the United States apologize for the entire incident.
As the Chinese held our crew hostage, President Bush and the National Security Council deliberated on how to react. State Department officials considered the crisis a diplomatic matter and proceeded as if the Pentagon need have no role in helping to shape the American response. Though I recognized that the U.S. ambassador in China would handle negotiations to secure the crew’s release, it was Defense Department personnel who were being held hostage. Knowing the sensitivity of the situation—China was obviously testing the new American president—I saw the problem not as a matter to be worked out by a small circle of State Department officials but one to be decided by the President, with the advice of his NSC, which included the Defense Department. The diplomats’ default position was to negotiate a settlement that seemed designed to placate the Chinese government. But for me, after their provocation, keeping the Chinese happy was not a goal that I thought should be at the absolute top of America’s priority list.
On the morning of April 2, 2001, a day after the capture of the American crew, Bush called Powell, Rice, and me into the Oval Office. The President asked each of us for our views. Powell and Rice appeared to favor a U.S. apology. Powell told us that State Department officials also favored a suspension of the routine U.S. reconnaissance flights that the Chinese had been periodically intercepting. Powell added that Admiral Dennis Blair, the combatant commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, supported the recommendation to suspend the flights. These views reflected the natural inclination to move quickly to bring the unfortunate incident to an end, even if America had to humble itself to get the crew back as rapidly as possible. American companies were investing many billions of dollars in China. There were significant economic interests in maintaining good relations with the PRC by offering an apology and moving on.
When the President asked me what I thought, I said I did not favor an apology or suspending our reconnaissance