The United States should consider an apology for its surveillance plane bumping into China's fighter jet, a comment published by the newspaper "the Australian" on Monday said.

The comment said that the United States was engaged in spying activities involving a surveillance aircraft loitering in a sensitive area and collecting Chinese signals and radar emissions.

The comment by Gary Klintworth, an Australian Defense Intelligence Organization China analyst from 1971 to 1996, said that the US aircraft was operating above China's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

It landed without permission at a Chinese air force base in Hainan Province, the comment said..

From the Chinese perspective, the US aircraft was not conducting an innocent overflight through space above China's EEZ, it said.

"On the contrary, it was engaged in activities that impinged on China's national security and about which Beijing had previously complained," it said.

A Chinese pilot is missing after the incident, the article said. At the very least, the Chinese are entitled to investigate the cause of it.

The article cited Article 58 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which says in exercising their rights in or above another country's EEZ, "states should have due regard to the rights of the coastal state and shall comply with laws and regulations adopted by the coastal state."

"China has no interest in prolonging the dispute," the comment said.

"All that is required is for the United States to step back a little and pick up President George W. Bush's pre-election promise to conduct a foreign policy that would not humiliate less powerful nations," it said.

The article, titled "Bush must cool Cold War fears", concluded that of concern is the possibility "Washington's attitude reflects the Cold War mentality of the Bush administration."

(Xinhua 04/09/2001)