April 5, 2001

No sabers rattling on Beijing streets

By Steve Friess, USA TODAY

BEIJING - No bottle-throwing. Few heated denunciations of those murderous, reckless Americans. Little discomfort among Western tourists who wandered into China at just the wrong time - during an international incident that could affect them. As Americans watch the fate of the U.S. spy plane and the 24-member crew held by China since Sunday, the Chinese public and Western visitors here are giving the issue a collective shrug.

The scene is in stark contrast to the accidental bombing in 1999 of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by U.S. forces. That incident killed three Chinese and sparked anti-American outrage across this nation. Then, Chinese crowded outside the U.S. Embassy here to throw rocks and bottles and chant anti-U.S. slogans.

This week, there's nothing more outside the building than some taxi drivers waiting to pick up fares and a street vendor offering to mend shoes. News photographers stood vigil for hours hoping to gobble up a news morsel, which prompted passing American tourists to ask what was going on.

"We didn't even know anything was happening," says Jill Czarnecki, 20, a University of Pittsburgh student visiting Beijing.

Most Americans living in China are aware of the situation, but many say they know how big the issue is being played in the USA only because of e-mails or phone calls they have received from concerned relatives and friends.

"I finally logged onto my laptop for the first time since Saturday, and my mother sent me about 12 e-mails asking me if I was all right, whether they're treating us badly," says Doreen Sanchez, 24, of Jamaica, N.Y. "I had no idea this was such a big deal." While they see frequent comments from U.S. officials on CNN, Westerners have gotten relatively little from the Chinese government.

The state-run English language China Daily played the story small at the bottom of its front page on the first day of the controversy. Since then, longer pieces have appeared, including a state news agency bulletin offering a detailed account of the incident, which occupied two-thirds of an inside page, and commentaries that mock the U.S. position that the collision was an accident.

China's government insists on showing its public that it is not preoccupied. Statements from President Jiang Zemin have come not in appearances specific to the incident, but among his comments on meetings with the visiting prime minister of Qatar.

The Chinese public is concerned about the fate of its pilot, who parachuted out of his disabled jet and has yet to be found, but there's little sense that the incident is the result of aggression by the United States.

As a diplomatic firestorm rages among politicians and pundits, many average residents have tuned out and chalked it up as the latest in a series of tiffs.

"We don't pay any attention because we know the U.S. is not going to go to war with China, and it will all be resolved after they're done talking," says Xiao Lu, 24, a Chinese woman living with her American boyfriend. "To us, it's like divorced parents bickering. It bothers us to see it, so we just ignore it."

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