The US government should have explained and apologized to the Chinese government and assumed full responsibility for this. However, instead of doing so, the US side wantonly whipped up opinion, charging that China was ignorant of air rules and failed to act in accordance with international law, and what not. This conforms exactly to the Chinese saying, "The guilty party files the suit first." This behavior of the US side represents a new performance it staged in explaining its hegemonic conduct with domineering logic.

The US censure of China and its self-justification are untenable. The first so-called legal basis put forward by the United States is the principle of so-called over-flight freedom. According to its logic, the responsibility for the plane collision incident rests with Chinese military airplanes which conducted tracing surveillance of the US plane. This remark is very much like referring to a robber who made trouble at the door of another person's home and yet forbid the house-owner to meddle in the matter.

According to the UN Convention on Law of the Sea, the premise of foreign airplanes' freedom right of flying over the exclusive economic zone is that they must abide by the law of the coastal countries and the rules of international law, they must not engage in activities that endanger the sovereignty, security and national interest of a coastal country. However, US military airplanes have repeatedly haunted China's offshore sky to carry out reconnaissance flights in provocation against China's sovereignty and bumped a Chinese plane on a tracing surveillance mission. The act of the US side has violated the UN Convention on Law of the Sea and jeopardized China's security and national interest. It is exactly the United States that has violated the international principle on "over-flight freedom".

After the occurrence of the incident, although the Chinese side adopted a restraint attitude and made proper arrangements for US fliers, the US side, however, after the occurrence of the incident, made a big fuss about the "sovereign status" of the US plane and even declared in a threatening tone that the US plane belonged to US national property and should enjoy sovereignty immunity and so on and so forth. It was the US reconnaissance plane which, after the occurrence of the incident, arbitrarily intruded into China's territorial airspace without applying to nor informing China of the incident in disregard of China's sovereignty.

The international law which should be jointly observed by various countries around the world has become a private weapon used by the Americans to attack others and protect themselves. The incident in which the US military reconnaissance plane crashed Chinese military plane has given full expression to the domineering act of the United States.

The fact that US military reconnaissance plane bumped the Chinese military plane and infringed upon China's sovereignty over its territorial airspace is an event of serious violation of international law, no justification and censure made by the United States can change this fact.

The Chinese people are a justice-upholding people. The Chinese people have the right to know the answers to these questions: Why has the US side frequently sent out its military reconnaissance aircraft to carry out activities in China's offshore areas? Why did the US plane suddenly turn around in violation of the rules of operation and thus wrecked Chinese plane? Why did the US plane intrude into Chinese territorial airspace and land in a Chinese airport without permission? We sternly warn the US side that it should squarely face the fact, assume responsibility, and not absolve its domineering action with its hegemonic logic.

(People's Daily 04/05/2001)