WASHINGTON, 17 April — Leading Democratic and Republicans senators were busy on prime time TV over the weekend urging the Bush administration to take a tougher stand on its relations with China, and calling on President Bush to demand the return of the damaged US EP-3E surveillance plane China is still holding.
Also this weekend, two Israeli newspapers said that the Chinese fighter jet that caused a midair collision with a US surveillance plane, was equipped to carry Israeli-made air-to-air missiles, according to Israeli analysts who examined video footage of the Chinese fighter released by the Pentagon.
The charge that the surveillance plane incident had an Israeli connection has touched off speculation in Washington that the discovery could strain US-Israeli relations. Press reports also charge that Israel illegally sold US Patriot missile technology to China, and other reports say Israel is helping China build its F-10 fighter plane with avionics and radar from the canceled Israeli Lavi project, which incorporated sophisticated US technology.
Israel is widely believed to have been selling arms to China for the past 20 years, but neither country has divulged details of the deals.
Washington has restricted arms sales to China, and has pushed for its allies, including Israel, to comply. But analysts say Israel has shown a tough determination in the past to push through its deals.
Yesterday, the TV-talking senators avoided the Israeli link and stuck to their criticism of China. “It is crucial that the United States sends a strong signal to China that it cannot continue to engage in belligerent activity toward Taiwan and toward the Untied States and expect to have the kind of relationship with us that we had thought it wanted to have,” Sen. Jon Kyle, R-Arizona, and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CNN yesterday.
Sending a tough signal to China should be a “first priority,” Kyle said, when US and Chinese officials meet tomorrow to discuss what caused the April 1 midair collision over the South China Sea between a US EP-3E surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8 fighter jet.
Many key senators of Congress who spoke on yesterday’s talk shows said they were reconsidering whether China deserved to maintain its favored nation (trading) status with the US. “Relations cannot continue on the current basis... There’s got to be retribution,” Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-New Jersey, and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said “without question” he would vote against continuing its FNS. Other senators called for cooler heads to prevail.
“...Whether (our future relationship with China) is irreparable or not, I think it’s too early to tell,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
