Bush's Big Test: Saving Face

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Even before the collision, anger at the U.S. was running high. Beijing felt that the Bush Administration had failed to give China credit for new policies designed to reach out to Washington. In November, China agreed to control its missile exports, but Bush condemned it for selling a communications cable to Iraq. In January, China adopted a less threatening policy toward Taiwan; Bush still might sell Aegis air-defense radar to the island. If he does, "relations with the U.S. could worsen permanently, and Jiang will lose the greatest pillar of his legitimacy," says an Asian diplomat in Beijing. Last month China dispatched foreign policy mandarin Qian Qichen to Washington to patch up relations; Bush chose to receive Japan's doomed Prime Minister first, underscoring Tokyo's privileged position. "I'm frustrated," says a Chinese foreign policy adviser criticized by leaders for being too pro-U.S. "China might pay a price, but the Bush Administration needs to be taught a lesson."

Of course, nothing is that simple. Last year Beijing enjoyed a trade surplus of $83 billion with the U.S., its top export market, and U.S. businesses invested about $4 billion in China. These investors have become Beijing's most useful lobbyists in Washington. They thwarted Clinton's initial plan to link China's trade status with human rights and helped win Washington's support for China's entry into the World Trade Organization. China needs that relationship because, to some extent, the leadership's power rests on rising living standards that depend on growing trade.

If Bush and Jiang faced similar internal crosswinds, they did so within very different time frames. The Chinese have been waiting 50 years for Japan to apologize for its conduct in World War II. Bush is living in a 24-hour news cycle, in which impatience is a virtue. "Bush's tough instincts were right," says a Republican lobbyist, "but they were counterproductive. He should have known that the Chinese don't respond well to bluster." It would have been better, say several G.O.P. foreign policy veterans, to be belligerent in private and play a sweeter song in public. "By saying we won't apologize," says a veteran, "we set the bar way too high."

By Wednesday, you could hear the nuance sliding back into Washington's official statements. At a meeting that morning in the Oval Office, Bush told his advisers he wanted to find a "way out." Senior staff members brought up whether Bush should go ahead as planned and throw out the first pitch at a baseball game Friday. Would that look too frivolous if the servicemen and -women were still detained? "We're going," said Bush immediately. His advisers agreed. "He's sending a clear message that this is serious, but his schedule is not going to change," said a White House official. "Government business goes on."

It took until Wednesday night for the diplomats to finally get to work. "We aren't talking past each other anymore," said a senior State Department official. "We're not spitting in each other's faces quite so much." Officials were pulling all-nighters on both ends. Powell was called at 2:30 a.m. Thursday for an update.