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Sorry is nice, but not what China wants
HONG KONG, China -- The spy plane standoff between China and the U.S. is as much a study in semantics as it is about the maneuvers of three aircraft high above the South China Sea. With a U.S. spy plane stranded on China's Hainan Island, and its 24 crew members in detention, the focus has turned to the specifics of the meaning behind the words "regret" and "sorry". U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said at the weekend he was "sorry that a life was lost" in the incident. President George W. Bush has also expressed "regret" over the incident and sent a personal letter of condolence to the wife of the missing Chinese pilot Wang Wei. But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said on Monday that US statements in the plane standoff had been "unacceptable,'' and repeated demands for a full US apology. The difference between "regret" and a formal apology could affect just how long the U.S. aircrew is held on Hainan Island. The crew landed on Hainan Island after their EP-3E Aries II and a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collided about 100km off the island's south coast. The jet, which crashed into the sea, was one of two sent to ward off the U.S. spy plane, which U.S. officials say was on a "routine" mission. The U.S. says its plane was on autopilot, while China says the U.S. plane swerved into its fighter, causing the collision. The State-owned China Daily newspaper quoted Zhu as saying, "the United States should apologize and respond appropriately. If they don't, it's going to make things difficult. If they do, it's going to help resolve the problem.'' An apologyOfficials laying out Beijing's demands use the Chinese word "daoqian" -- a formal apology that means the speaker accepts blame. Washington has refused, saying it doesn't see why it should apologize for the April 1 collision, which it says was an accident. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell got the blame ball rolling last Wednesday, expressing "regret" over the loss of the Chinese plane. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman welcomed that as a "step in the right direction." But he insisted on a formal "daoqian" -- pronounced dow-Chee-yen. U.S. diplomats at that point had met the air crew just once. The spokesman suggested that they might not be allowed to do so again until Washington used that word, though China has since allowed three more visits. Then, on Thursday, President George W. Bush himself expressed "regret." The official Xinhua News Agency translated Bush's expression as "yihan" -- a term for regret but a mild, ambiguous one. "It can even be used when the other person is the one who has done wrong," said Perry Link, a professor of Chinese at Princeton University. "I can see why, translated that way, it wouldn't cut any ice with the Chinese." Powell took pains to say his expression of sorrow at the loss of Chinese pilot Wang Wei was not an apology for the incident. China already had written to Powell rejecting the American expressions as inadequate and insisting on its apology. Struggling over the wordingDiplomats from the two countries are said to be struggling over the wording of a letter that they hope will settle the impasse. They are now working on a fourth draft of the letter. They hope to arrive at phrasing that China can portray as an apology but that Washington can say doesn't admit guilt. "Daoqian" means literally "I speak of my failure." The difference might seem academic. But Bush and his advisers appear to understand that to China, an apology carries obligations, such as acquiescing to demands to stop surveillance flights near its coast. The collision took place 100 kilometers from the Chinese coast, in international airspace. China says that while foreign planes have a right to fly there, they shouldn't conduct surveillance. U.S. apologized for the Yugoslavia bombingAfter the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, Washington apologized repeatedly to China. Chinese is a precise tongue ill-suited to diplomatic vagueness. Translators complain of the difficulty of using it to portray English euphemisms and their calculated lack of meaning. And, like its range of words for "sorry," Chinese has multiple terms with different shades of meaning for objects that English-speakers group together using the same word. A "president" in English can be the leader of a company, university or nation, while in Chinese each post demands a different title. An apology extracted with 24 Americans in captivity might be viewed in the West as less than sincere and carry few obligations. But in China, apologies under duress have been a key element to legal and moral life since long before the communists came to power. The Associated Press contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES:
David Ensor: Words do matter in U.S.-China standoff RELATED SITES:
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