[iwar] [fc:China.Plane.Bug.Unlikely.to.Hurt.US]

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Date: 2002-01-21 07:38:56


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Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 07:38:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:China.Plane.Bug.Unlikely.to.Hurt.US]
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China Plane Bug Unlikely to Hurt US

Ref:  Associated Press, 9:59 PM, 19 Jan 2002

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8746-2002Jan19.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8746-2002Jan19.html>

by Robert Burns, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The reported bugging of China's new presidential aircraft, a specially 
fitted Boeing 767, is unlikely to cause a rupture in relations with the United States, 
U.S. experts said Saturday.

The White House and State Department were publicly silent on the subject, declining 
to comment on the disclosure or say whether Beijing had protested or otherwise contacted 
Washington about it.

"We never discuss these kinds of allegations," said White House spokesman Taylor 
Gross.

It was understood in Washington that there has been no communication on this subject 
involving either the U.S. or Chinese governments. A former U.S. government official 
with close ties to the administration said he believed there would be no lasting 
impact. He said a Chinese official in Beijing told him Friday there had been no official 
protest.

Newspaper reports Saturday said Chinese authorities discovered the bugs during a 
test flight last October. That Beijing has not protested to Washington, three months 
afterward, suggests the possibility that Chinese authorities have reason to suspect 
their own people played a role in the episode.

The Washington Post quoted unidentified sources as saying Chinese aviation and military 
officers believe U.S. intelligence agencies planted the listening devices aboard 
the plane while it was being fitted in the United States with special bathroom and 
other accommodations for President Jiang Zemin.

The CIA had no comment.

The Post reported that after the listening devices were discovered, 20 Chinese air 
force officers and two officials involved in negotiations for the airliner were detained 
and are being investigated for negligence and corruption. It also said a senior air 
force officer is under house arrest for his role.

The Chinese government made no public comment on the matter.

The Financial Times of London reported that tiny listening devices were hidden in 
the jetliner's upholstery, including in the president's bathroom and the headboard 
of his bed. It cited unnamed Chinese sources.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who was traveling with Secretary of 
State Colin Powell in Tokyo on Saturday, said he was aware of the news reports but 
declined comment. In Washington, department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg had no comment 
on whether China had lodged a diplomatic protest.

Bates Gill, a China expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Saturday 
that if - as reported in news accounts - the bugs were found before the plane went 
into use as Jiang's personal aircraft, then China's intelligence loss would be minimal 
and the scandal may blow over fairly quickly.

"My sense is this will not have any lasting effects" on U.S.-China relations, Gill 
said. "This can, in a relatively short period of time, be set aside as simply a failed 
intelligence operation. In fact it shouldn't surprise anyone in the United States 
or China that someone is trying to collect intelligence."

Chinese officials were puzzled as to how and when the bugs were planted, the newspaper 
reports said. China had carefully monitored the plane's construction at the Boeing 
Co. plant in Seattle, and the fitting of its interior by several aircraft maintenance 
companies in San Antonio, Texas.

The disclosure comes one month before President Bush is scheduled to travel to Beijing 
to meet with Jiang.

Bush was at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat Saturday and received his 
usual intelligence briefing.

U.S.-China relations have been topsy-turvy in recent years, and controversy over 
spying is not new. Last April, a Chinese fighter intercepted and collided with a 
U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance plane over the South China Sea, forcing the Navy plane 
to make an emergency landing on a Chinese island. The fighter jet crashed, killing 
its pilot.

The Navy plane had been collecting electronic intelligence on the Chinese military, 
and China protested that such missions were violating its national sovereignty. China 
released the EP-3E crew only after the Bush administration publicly stated it was 
sorry for what happened.

The use of listening devices to spy on other governments is far from unusual. In 
1985, the United States halted construction of a new embassy building in Moscow after 
listening devices installed by Soviet construction workers were discovered throughout 
the building. A major diplomatic flap ensued.

In 1999, a Russian spy was discovered outside the State Department listening to 
a bugging device planted in a seventh floor conference room.

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