Word: standoff
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...resolving the standoff was recognizing the political dynamic on the Chinese side. Plainly, President Jiang Zemin and the modernizers in Beijing who have staked their careers on opening China to the West and integrating it into the world economy had no interest in prolonging a confrontation that could only imperil their achievements. But in the atmosphere of hostility generated in China by the Hainan incident, there was a danger that those modernizers could be eclipsed by hard-liners in Beijing hoping to slow, or even turn back, the clock. A solution depended on Jiang and his allies' being given political...
...administration still finding its feet - and not yet equipped with a China policy or team when the crisis broke - it was a remarkably poised performance. The China standoff, of course, is not quite over, and the hawks who were forced to keep their sabers sheathed to speed the return of the U.S. crew may be inclined to press for a harder line with Beijing on some of the conflicts that both sides must begin addressing as early as next week, each one carrying the risk of further confrontations. Which is why the surefooted diplomatic skills demonstrated by Secretary Powell this...
...tomato, I say toh-mah-toh, let's call the whole thing off..." Indeed, if China and the U.S. spoke the same language, the job of U.S. and Chinese diplomats negotiating the text of a letter from Washington that would allow them to end the Hainan standoff would have been a lot more difficult. And, of course, Beijing's monopoly of control over the Chinese media may have proved extremely useful in developing traction for a diplomatic solution in which one side needed to convince its public that it had received an apology, while the other side had to gesture...
...Having defined the issue as a standoff over a hostile incursion that cost the life of a Chinese pilot, Beijing found itself unable to release the U.S. crew without an apology. But although it opted immediately for a diplomatic solution, the U.S. was never going to use the word daoqian, a formal apology that accepts blame - the U.S. believes it did nothing wrong flying a surveillance mission in international airspace, and has no intention of refraining from doing so in the future. In the battle of wills over the wording of the not-quite-apology, Washington wouldn't even...
TIME.com: The Hainan standoff occurred before the Bush administration had developed a comprehensive China policy, or put in place the people to manage that policy. How will the incident shape the making of Bush administration China policy...