Bush's Big Test: Saving Face

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As it retuned the message, the Administration discussed even tougher options. Diplomatic meetings and military exchanges could be canceled. Bush could drop his fall visit to Beijing. He could make dark noises about trade, even end normal trading status. The U.S. could get in the way of China's quest to hold the 2008 Olympics. Then there was the question of whether to sell advanced defensive weapons to Taiwan. "He's got a lot of sticks," a former Clinton Administration official says of Bush, "but the problem is, they're all too big."

Bush's Tuesday remarks left some old China hands dismayed. "You don't want to talk about harming the relationship until you know what sort of harm you may be inflicting," said J. Stapleton Roy, who was ambassador to Beijing under Bush's father and a top U.S. diplomat under Clinton. "I think it does reflect a certain amount of inexperience when you make statements like that." Roy blamed Bush's tone on Administration officials "who are unrealistic in their expectations of how China should behave in these circumstances."

And it wasn't long after Bush spoke that the Administration began to dial it back. A tantalizing question through the first tense days was how much the 43rd President was huddling with the 41st. Bush gave no hint, even to some of his closest aides, that he was talking to his father, but everyone in the West Wing assumed he was. Dad's diplomatic alter ego, Brent Scowcroft, was in regular communication with Rice, his former protege. Scowcroft worked quietly behind the scenes to tone down the initial response. Bush Sr., who spent part of last week in Europe but could have been in secure contact with the White House through embassy phone hookups, has always thought of himself as an old China hand. As President, Bush often told his aides, "I know the Chinese"--and then rang up Beijing for a friendly chat. The habit drove advisers like Scowcroft crazy, not only because they couldn't keep track of what he said but also because Bush Sr. had a tendency to soft-pedal problems. As tensions rose last week, Bush aides began to hope that a family powwow was taking place. One of the many West Wing officials who worked for both father and son put it this way: "God, I hope he is talking to his father."

China had so much to lose by putting Bush in a corner that U.S. analysts found it hard to figure Beijing's motives. Why would Jiang stake so much on one spy plane? He could have fed the U.S. crew a nice Chinese meal and sent them home, earning all kinds of Western goodwill. Instead, he kept raising the stakes, demanding an apology before anyone had a chance to investigate the incident or debrief the pilots on either side.