I haven't seen a lot of coverage comparing Bush's first foreign policy crisis, the holding by the Chinese government of the crew of a U.S. spy plane following the plane's collision with a Chinese fighter jet, to Obama's handling of the Somaili pirate incident.
A refresher on the spy plane incident:
Chinese officials have angrily rejected as inadequate a United States offer of compensation meant to help cover China's expenses after an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided in April.
The collision, over international waters, forced the damaged American plane to make an emergency landing on the Chinese island of Hainan, where its crew was held for 11 days. The plane itself was dismantled and sent back to the United States only on July 3, after months of acrimonious negotiation.
But the recent exchanges over the spy plane -- as awkward and hostile as those that occurred in the tense days in early April -- suggest that the ghost of the collision continues to haunt the relationship.
Salon:
In a pressured overnight session one day after publicly resigning himself to a long wait, Bush signed off on an undignified, poorly written, sycophantish letter of apology to China for an accident that was no fault of the American military -- and we still don't have our reconnaissance plane back. What was the big rush, aside from domestic politics, to end the detention of the 24 crew members in China? They're all professionals, and while they were stringently interrogated, there was no evidence they were being mistreated. Making little visible effort to coordinate a response with our allies, the Bush administration seems to have sacrificed the nation's larger strategic interests for immediate political relief.
It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that Communist China is waiting for the optimal moment, in this decade or the next, to snatch back Taiwan, whose status as an independent nation it has never accepted. By hesitating, wavering, and then abruptly caving in to Beijing over the spy plane, the Bush administration may have signaled that the U.S. won't go to war over Taiwan -- a message further muddled by Bush's off-the-cuff remarks about the island last week, which seemed to indicate a change of established American policy but might just have been a slip of the tongue.
PBS, interview of Richard Armitage:
JIM LEHRER: Sure. Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, two conservative writers, wrote this morning on the op/ed page of the Washington Post "We can kid ourselves all we want, but we have suffered a blow to our prestige and reputation, a loss that will reverberate throughout the world if we do not begin immediately to repair the damage." Are they right about that, Mr. Secretary?
...
JIM LEHRER: What about their additional line here that so far the lesson is all too clear - when you bully the United States, the United States searches for a way to apologize?
RICHARD ARMITAGE: I don't recognize that we've accepted any responsibility in this accident, hence, we haven't apologized, and they certainly are interpreting the letter in a way that seems to me to leave them alone.
JIM LEHRER: No American should have any reason to be ashamed or to be the least bit upset about this whole incident?
RICHARD ARMITAGE: I think the Americans have every right to be upset about the incident. I think Americans equally have every right to be satisfied with the outcome. We have our 24 servicemen and women home for these holidays. That's a good outcome.
JIM LEHRER: And what we also want now, is that airplane, number one, right?
RICHARD ARMITAGE: Yes, indeed.
I think we should be glad that Bush didn't go all "shock and awe" on China, and that the crew was returned unharmed. Possibly there was nothing the Bush Administration could have done to resolve the situation more quickly without resorting to the use of force, which would have been a disaster. It does seem that the diplomatic effort could have been pursued with a bit more finesse.
However, I do find it interesting that I haven't seen any mention of the incident over at RedState, et al, cutting Obama some slack given the difficulty Bush had in dealing with the Chinese situation, where innocent life was also at stake. And in their eyes, Bush recovered from this incident and went on to become one of the greatest presidents of all time - a tough-talking, resolute leader, with a firm moral compass, who would not hesitate to use military force at the drop of a hat! Their hypocrisy remains unparalleled.