The United States "is the known aggressor" as during the recent collision between a Chinese fighter and a US surveillance plane, said the Daily Nation newspaper, the most influential in Kenya, on Thursday.

"What China is demanding is totally reasonable: nothing more than an apology and a commitment to reparation," the newspaper said in an editorial.

Commenting on US move of sending the plane to conduct surveillance over the offshore waters of the city of Sanya on April 1, the editorial said "the injustice of it is striking. It poses the question: is the world in for bullying for the next four years? it would be extremely tragic, even for the United States itself."

The editorial observed that the US, as the remaining superpower since 1990 with the advent of unipolarism, "has the biggest stake in the world, which is why it has nominated itself as the global policeman".

"If it starts riding roughshod over the world, it risks causing not only a new Cold War but international flare-up that would kill millions and damage untold property, much of it American," the editorial concluded.

According to the article, "what is beginning to characterize the White House under President George Bush Junior... is an abandonment of international diplomacy" which could "prove globally perilous."

On Wednesday, Chinese President Jiang Zemin repeated a demand for a U.S. apology for Sunday's mid-air collision which resulted in the loss of the Chinese fighter, and left its pilot missing.

"The United States should apologize to the Chinese for this incident and bear all responsibility for the consequence," President Jiang said, before leaving on a six-Latin American- nation tour.

(People's Daily 04/05/2001)