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US-China Relations "Not Business as Usual"
US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said Sunday relations with China were "not business as usual" and defended Washington's review of its contacts with Beijing following the recent standoff over the collision of a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.
"It had always been intended that (Secretary of State Colin) Powell and (Secretary of Defense) Rumsfeld and I, on behalf of other secretaries, would review our contacts with the Chinese for appropriateness," she told Fox News Sunday.
"Nobody believes that it's yet business as usual with China, so we wanted to make certain that contacts were appropriate, but there was no blanket suspension," she said.
US President George W. Bush said Thursday he may decide to scrap Sino-US military ties that do not enhance the bilateral relationship.
"We're going to review all opportunities to interface with the Chinese, and if it enhances our relationship, it might make sense. If it's a useless exercise, and it doesn't make the relationship any better, then we won't do that," Bush said.
"Each opportunity will be viewed on a case-by-case basis," the president said a day after the Pentagon retracted a statement that all such ties would be suspended in favor of saying they would be weighed individually.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday acknowledged the embarrassing error. "I made a mistake," he told Face the Nation on CBS.
But, he added, the administrations "had been looking at US-Chinese relations" since the new administration took over in late January.
The US decision to review the relationship came in response to April 1st Sino-US plane incident.
A US team of engineers that inspected the damaged US spy plane in southern China left Saturday.
The five-member team from contractor Lockheed Martin left Hainan's provincial capital Haikou at the end of their four-day stay.
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