Name: Spy Plane Crash: How U.S. & China Almost Went to War
Uploaded: 2021-06-28T13:15:25.000Z
Duration: 12 min 3 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

A Chinese jet crashed into a US spy plane

The CCP is celebrating its propaganda victory

Last week was the 20th anniversary of the Hainan Island incident.

On April 1, 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US reconnaissance plane above the South

The Chinese jet crashed, but the US plane managed to land...on Hainan Island, in China. 

The collision caused a major diplomatic incident between the US and China.

It was also the first big foreign policy test for the George W. Bush administration.

That is, after someone finally convinced President Bush that the collision actually happened

and was not in fact an elaborate April Fool's Day joke set up by Dick Cheney.

We've never talked about the Hainan Island incident on this show.

It happened way before China Uncensored—even before Youtube. 

But US-China relations are still feeling the repercussions of that incident even 20 years

So let's take a look back at what happened.

But if we did, we probably would have had a Geocities website.

Which you could have found by Asking Jeeves on your Netscape Navigator.

And YouTube wasn't around, so China Uncensored would probably just be Flash animations where

I talked about the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party while answering emails.

On April 1, 2001, a US Navy EP-3 maritime patrol aircraft was on a routine surveillance

when it was intercepted by two Chinese J-8 fighter jets.

But the Chinese jets had a habit of getting dangerously close to US planes.

And they had been getting more aggressive.

To the point that the US had already made official protests to China about the issue.

One of the Chinese pilots, Wang Wei, was especially known for pulling dangerous stunts. 

After the Chinese jets appeared, the US plane turned and started heading back to base.

At this point they were about 70 miles off of the coast of Hainan Island, over international

Chinese pilot Wang Wei was flying dangerously close to the US reconnaissance plane over

Here's what happened according to a PBS Frontline interview with the American pilot,

Osborn said the Chinese pilot came up next to the plane once, and then a second time.

The second time, he was only about 10 feet away.

The third time, the Chinese jet came up from underneath, and its nose collided with the

The US plane dove 8,000 ft while upside down, but Osborn, the pilot, managed to get it under

He was forced to make an emergency landing on the airstrip of a military base in Hainan,

After hitting the US plane, Wang Wei's jet broke up in the air and he parachuted into

Despite a search and rescue mission by the PLA, his body was never found.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party had this US reconnaissance plane grounded on its

They also had its 24 crewmembers, which they spent days interrogating. 

Plus, the Party's propaganda apparatus was getting into gear.

The main goal was to blame the Americans for the crash.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the US plane purposely turned toward the Chinese plane,

That might have been based on the account of Wang Wei's wingman, Zhao Yu, who said

that he saw the head and left wing of the US plane bump into Wang's plane.

Although Zhao didn't say that the US plane turned toward the Chinese jet. 

The Foreign Ministry also said that the US should bear full responsibility for the incident,

and also pay compensation for the Chinese damage.

The idea that the US needed to take full responsibility was repeated, including by then Chinese leader

Jiang also said the Chinese government had “sufficient evidence” that it was America's

And Jiang also accused the US of violating Chinese airspace.

It's not clear what evidence that the Chinese Communist Party had, because they never released

Meanwhile, the US government initially didn't assign any blame. 

But as the Chinese Communist Party continued with its propaganda offensive, including suggesting

that the US would need to apologize before China would release the American crew members,

the US government began to change tactics.

The Department of Defense released a video showing the pilot Wang Wei getting dangerously

close to another US plane in January 2001. 

The US also released a photo showing Wang Wei flying close to a US plane and holding

You can't quite make it out in the photo, but I'm guessing it was an AOL.com address.

But basically, the US was showing Wang Wei was a reckless pilot who had a history of

That's something the Chinese Communist Party didn't want to get out, since they were

making Wang into a martyr, including awarding him the title of Guardian of the Territorial

After days of tense negotiations, the US ambassador to China issued what became known as the Letter

 The letter expressed sincere regret over China's missing pilot and said that the

It also said the US was “very sorry the entering of China's airspace and landing

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Spy Plane Crash: How U.S. & China Almost Went to War

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