China and the United States have in the past few days conducted several rounds of diplomatic consultations to resolve the situation surrounding the collision between a US surveillance plane and a Chinese military plane, Xinhua learned from the Chinese Foreign Ministry Monday.

The US plane bumped into and caused the destruction of a Chinese fighter jet, then entered into Chinese territorial airspace and landed at a Chinese airport without permission on April 1. The pilot of the Chinese plane remains missing.

During the consultations, the Chinese side reiterated that the US side should take full responsibility for the incident and apologize to the Chinese side, and take effective measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

(People's Daily 04/09/2001)