Long Debate over the US Challenge } 657
still referring only to the collision and the loss of the Chinese pilot. Finally, on
the afternoon of April 11, US Ambassador Joseph Prueher delivered a letter to
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. This carefully written letter expressed “sin-
cere regret” over the death of the Chinese pilot, and said the United States was
“very sorry” that a US plane had entered China’s airspace and landed without
prior verbal approval. Strictly speaking, this was not a formal apology for the
entire incident, but Beijing deemed the “two apologies” adequate to bring the
episode to a close. The decision of China’s leaders to end the confrontation
even though the United States refused a genuine and unconditional “apol-
ogy” attracted considerable criticism from Chinese who felt the government
should be firmer in dealing with US arrogance and hegemony.
The EP-3 episode entered the popular Chinese nationalist litany of
American offenses against China along with the F-16 sale, the Yinhe, the
Beijing Olympics, Lee Teng-hui’s US visit, the 1996 carrier deployment, and
the Belgrade embassy bombing. Joseph Cheng and King-Lun Ngok provide
a good synopsis of the popular Chinese outrage over the airplane incident:
Chinese media widely reported the condemnation of US hegemonism
by Chinese people from all walks of life, from intellectuals, university
students, cadres to academics and foreign affairs specialists. At the chat
rooms of various web sites in China, one could easily detect the anger
toward the US from the demands to pursue the criminal responsibility
of the US pilot concerned; those on the Chinese leadership to adopt a
strong stand in dealing with the US, etc. The explanations offered by the
US side on the air collision were typically criticized as unreasonable ...
twisting the facts ... a r r o g a n t ... etc. The neglect of the fate of the missing
Chinese pilot by the US side was also condemned ... as ‘having lost the
human conscience.’^33The 9-11 Attacks and Renewal of PRC-US Cooperation
The al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the
Pentagon in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001 (hereafter “9-11”), just
over five months after the EP-3 collision, was a strategic windfall for Beijing.
The horrific nature of the 9-11 attacks on the American homeland focused
American security concern away from China. Chinese analysts were con-
vinced that the United States needed an enemy both to mobilize domestic
support (in the form of taxes and soldiers) for US hegemonistic efforts and
to keep US allies in line. China had struggled since the end of the Cold War
to prevent the PRC from becoming Washington’s necessary “next enemy.”
Now the 9-11 attacks supplied a genuine enemy for the United States.
Moreover, the United States adopted an aggressive, military strategy of “war