US President George W Bush stepped up pressure on China, calling for the immediate return of a downed US surveillance plane and its crew, warning the incident could scar long-term relations between Washington and Beijing.
In his second public statement on the issue in two days, Mr Bush urged Chinese officials to allow the 24-strong crew to return home and to release the plane, which made an emergency landing on China's southern Hainan island on Sunday.
"Now it is time for our servicemen and women to return home, and it is time for the Chinese goverment to return our plane," Mr Bush said in a statement in the White House Rose Garden.
And noticeably stiffening his language towards Beijing, Mr Bush warned that the escalating diplomatic standoff could have wider ramifications for the crucial Sino-US relationship.
"This accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries."
"To keep that from happening our servicemen and women need to come home."
Mr Bush said his approach had been to keep the collision on Sunday over the South China Sea between the US EP-3 Aries surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter from "becoming an international incident."
Therefore, he said he had allowed Beijing the "time to do the right thing."
His statement, carried live on US television news networks, came hours after American diplomats met the crew in southern China for the first time, but gave no clue as to when they would be released.
Mr Bush assured family members that the crew was in "good health, they suffered no injuries and they have not been mistreated."
"Our crew members expressed their faith in America and we have faith in them."
Chinese officials have insisted the United States had only itself to blame for the crisis and said Washington should start to repair the damage by apologising and calling a halt to its surveillance operations near Chinese territory.
China's President Jiang Zemin said in his own statement today that the blame "fully lies with the American side."
"It is the US plane, in violation of flying rules, that made dangerous moves, bumped into and destroyed our plane and caused our pilot (to go) missing," the Chinese leader said.
AFP
