No Nukes is Good Nukes (originally aired January 17, 2006)
- Issues: Spy plane incident, Owen Lattimore, coastal limits, North Korea
President Allen handles an international crisis and possible war with North Korea. To help, she brings in a Korea expert with a familiar name (see below). Speaker of the House Templeton helps with the crisis and welcomes back his chief aide.
- Reminiscent of Spy Plane Incident. This incident is reminiscent of how an international crisis between the United States and China over an EP-3 plane colliding with a Chinese jet was resolved in 2001.
On April 1, 2001, the EP-3 plane and a Chinese fighter jet piloted by a man named Wang Wei had a mid-air collision about 80 miles off of the shore of Hainan Island, a part of China and the closest significant land body to the incident. Pointing out that the EP-3 plane is much slower and less maneuverable than the fighter jet, United States officials have consistently said that the Chinese jet caused the collision. Chinese officials have taken the other side; another Chinese pilot who was flying near the EP-3 plane when the collision occurred also said that the EP-3 plane caused the collision by making a sudden swerve.
In any case, the EP-3 plane's crewmembers led by Lt. Shane Osborn were forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island and sent 15 to 25 messages on standard international frequencies warning of their approach, though they did not get verbal clearance before landing. There, the 24-member crew (21 men, 3 women) destroyed much but not all of the surveillance equipment and data on board before leaving the plane and surrendering to Chinese officials.
Over the next 11 days, the United States and China exchanged demands to resolve the situation. President George W. Bush demanded on April 2 the "prompt and safe return" of the crew and plane. The next day, China blamed the United States for causing the collision and suggested that the United States must apologize and cut back on the number of spy missions along the Chinese coast, and Chinese President Jiang Zemin personally insisted on April 4 that the United States make an official apology.
Resolving the situation largely revolved around whether the United States would accept any culpability for the incident and whether the United States would cease its surveillance operations. Bush and Powell said they would not give in on either point, and instead expressed their regret that the incident had occurred at all. Pentagon officials indicated that the Chinese jet had caused the incident, but Bush did not clearly speak on this point until after the crew members had returned to the United States.
Finally, China accepted an April 10 letter by Ambassador Joseph W. Prueher (on-line here), in which Prueher wrote that Bush and Powell had expressed their "sincere regret" and were "very sorry" for the loss of the pilot and aircraft, and also "very sorry" that the plane entered Chinese airspace and landed without verbal clearance. The phrase "very sorry" was translated in different ways in China, but no translations used the term "daoqian," which China had initially demanded and which would have indicated that the United States accepted culpability and blame for the incident.
On April 11, the entire 24-member crew boarded a Continental Airlines plane to leave Hainan Island and to return to the United States. Once they were back in the United States, crew members reported that they had been interrogated but were still treated well and were bored more than anything else.
- Owen Lattimore. The name of President Allen's Korea expert may ring a bell, because Owen Lattimore in real life was an expert on China who was accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950 of being the Soviet Union's top spy in the United States. Lattimore was indicted on perjury charges, but those charges eventually were dropped. An article on Lattimore is on-line here and the FBI's public file on Lattimore is on-line here.
- Coastal Limits. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every state has the right to establish its territorial sea to a maximum of 12 nautical miles from shore (on-line here) and the right to establish an exclusive economic zone to a maximum of 200 nautical miles (on-line here).
However, neither the United States nor North Korea has signed this convention (signatories on-line here), limiting to some degree the United States' ability to invoke that law itself.
The Bush administration has urged Senate passage of the convention. For example, in March 2004, an administration official testified that "as the world's leading maritime power, with the longest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone in the world, the United States will benefit more than any other nation from the provisions of the Convention, which establishes international consensus on the extent of jurisdiction that States may exercise off their coasts and allocates rights and duties among States in all marine areas" (source here).
- North Korea's Nuclear Potential. North Korea agreed in six-party talks on September 19, 2005 to a Statement of Principles (on-line here) that called for its abandoning nuclear weapons, but a possible sticking point remains on the timing of the United States providing a light-water nuclear reactor. The United States agreed in the statement to provide such a reactor "at an appropriate time," but North Korea said on September 20 that they want the reactor before abandoning any nuclear weapons programs.
When asked about this, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on September 20 that the agreement stood. "Now, if North Korea needs some time to reflect on that agreement, we'll give it to them. But all the parties are operating off the agreement that was signed by North Korea and all the others," he said. "North Korea first has to abandon its nuclear weapons and eliminate its nuclear programs in a verifiable way. It has to come into compliance with the nonproliferation treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And once they take those steps, then we would be prepared to talk further at that time. But it was an agreement that all parties signed on to, including North Korea."
North Korea had announced in February 2005 that it had manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defense against the United States. North Korea acknowledged in October 2002 that it had developed a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, expelled international nuclear inspectors in December 2002, and reportedly threatened privately in April and August 2003 to demonstrate its nuclear weapons.
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By Stephen Lee
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