U.S. Officials to Meet With Chinese Delegation Wednesday
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting a better idea from the White House today of the tone U.S. officials will take when they meet with a delegation in Beijing in the wake of the surveillance plane standoff. One key item on the agenda at Wednesday's meeting: the fate of the crippled U.S. plane, still in China. For more details, we check in with CNN senior White House correspondent John King -- John.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Natalie, administration sources telling CNN that even during negotiations to win the release of the crew there were some discussions about getting a U.S. team in there to repair and retrieve the EP-3 surveillance plane. That could not be worked out in the negotiations, so the negotiators focused on winning the president's first priority: the release of the 24 crew members. But now, a key meeting on Wednesday; the first between U.S. and Chinese officials since the end of the standoff, and returning that surveillance plane will be one of several items on the U.S. agenda.</s>ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The agenda for the meeting Wednesday is basically four-fold. One is for the United States to provide clear understanding to the Chinese about the cause of the accident from our point of view. Two, is to discuss how such accidents can be avoided in the future. Three, as the president indicated last week, to ask tough questions to the Chinese about the manner in which they have dangerously intercepted the United States reconnaissance flights. And four, to make the case that plane is in the United States property and the United States would like to have the plane returned.</s>KING: Senior administration officials telling CNN the U.S. delegation also will inform the Chinese side that the United States plans to resume those surveillance flights in the near future. The U.S. side, we're told, will not give a firm date for security reasons, but will make clear those flights will resume and that they expect the Chinese side to back off, to have its fighter pilots to back off. Now, the White House wouldn't publicly confirm the plans to resume the flights, but Ari Fleischer making clear the Bush administration certainly views such a step as clearly within its rights.</s>FLEISCHER: The United States will always reserve the right to operate over international waters and international airspace to protect the needs of our neighbors, promote regional stability and secure peace.</s>KING: Now, in the debate over resuming those flights, there has also been discussion of, wouldn't it be safer to have that slow-moving EP-3 surveillance plane, have some jet fighter escorts along with it. Some reports even suggesting that the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier, is in the region, to do just that, to provide air escorts to those surveillance flights in the future. But Pentagon officials and other administration officials telling CNN, the Kitty Hawk is on its way to Guam. They're discounting any notion, at least in the short term, you would have fighter escorts for such surveillance flights. Most administration officials believe that that would be more dangerous, more planes in the sky. Fighter jets obviously heavily armed, that that would actually increase the risk of some sort of confrontation or some sort of accident -- Natalie.</s>ALLEN: And John, is anyone saying what the next step will be if the U.S., in this meeting, doesn't get any assurances from China that they plan to back off flying alongside the U.S. surveillance planes?</s>KING: No. As you heard in the open of the show, the White House hoping, because the Chinese did lose a pilot here, hoping that the Chinese will understand and will agree to some form of protocols; although there's no expectation that perhaps you will do this in one meeting. Everyone assuming this will be a series of meetings to work this out. But the U.S. side saying very firmly that it believes it can, within its right, within international law, and that it must, to show that is has not been intimidated by the Chinese, resume these flights. They're hoping to work out some sort of agreement. But the administration acknowledging it's not certain it will be able to do so.</s>ALLEN: All right, John King at the White House. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com