China Detains White House Press Plane

BEIJING — A charter airplane carrying the White House press corps was detained for nearly three hours Friday at Beijing's international airport not long after President Bush arrived to attend the Olympic Games.

The flight crew of the Northwest Airlines 747 had been expecting to park at a VIP terminal, but after landing was instead directed by the control tower to a normal international gate.

White House officials would say only there were "logistical problems" getting clearance to unload the aircraft. The flight crew was told the Chinese were insisting that all luggage be inspected.

Typically, the White House press charter receives the "custom of the port," meaning reporters, photographers and camera crews are able to get off the plane right after landing, board buses and head to their hotels and work areas while U.S. State Department officials process immigration and customs details.

Delays on landing have happened before, but no one on the plane was able to recall one this long.

The plane landed at 2:10 a.m. local time. Passengers finally were able to get off the plane shortly after 5 a.m. However, they were made to pass through Chinese immigration control individually, and baggage was still being screened.

Many of those on the plane _ roughly 40 journalists _ were due to cover the president's first appearance of the day: the opening of the new Beijing U.S. Embassy complex.

Comments

[Circe]

Can you blame them?

I mean really. Is there in the US much more personal freedom than China these days?

Patriot Act, anyone? The US Gov. listening to personal telephone calls/other communications with impunity? Guantanamo Bay?

[Coattails]

I can blame them, they execute over 10 times as many people per year as the US does. They will throw you in jail for assembling a protest, speaking freely, or even things we take for granted like surfing the web.

Although I'm sure China has their own version of a "worst of the worst" prison like Guantanamo Bay, on their own soil, not like the loopholes we currently have in Cuba.

Also, know that the US state department won't allow anyone traveling there on a US flight travel to China right now with a computer that isn't completely wiped, they love to seize those and data mine every scrap of foreign intelligence they can

[HermioneGranger]

Then again, China has five times as many people than the US. that puts the number in perspective

Its quite funny, though, how the only Democracy that executes people en masse partly fpr being black - i.e. the U.S. — is crizitizing other countries for having the death penalty.

[FiLoLi]

Humm...thi­s one is too easy.

I have four children. How many do you have? I was not fined and did not have to ask special permission to have number 2, 3, or 4.

If you could get on Huffington Post in China, which you could not, what do you think would happen to you if you critisized the government the way we all do?

[jsump]

Yeah you have four children, but that's greedy. Over population is not just China's problem.
However, you are too arrogant to know that you and others like you disproportionately consume our natural and economic resources. Just as you are too shallow and oblivious to realize that you and others like you disproportionately contribute to global warming and other environmental issues.

[vippy]

Do you read Chinadaily.com?

[Counterglow]

Silly buggers! They probably thought there were journalists aboard the damned thing. All they got were the White House press corps, and they've been Bush's prison bitches for years.

[Coattails]

I thought we were considering boycotting the opening ceremonies due to the human rights abuses, and restrictions on the freedoms of speech and assembly.

Looks like we went to give them some dignity, as they are a huge debtor and trading partner of ours, I guess they wanted to say thanks.

[Viper]

We are the huge debtor.. we owe them lots of money .. more than a trillion and growing fast.

Regards

[Kalima]

Welcome to the new China, the same old, same old but sure interested in making money.
I wonder if Chairman Mao is turning in his grave?

[NochlessMonster]

It always come down to the money in the end.......­..

[Kalima]

If it went back to the people who need it that's fine but to build up the military
machine so they can once again attack Tibet or threaten Taiwan as they do
at least once a year, no.
Had there been stricter rules for the construction businesses, fewer people
would have perished in the earthquake not so long ago. Greed everywhere,
even in Communist China. People are people all over the world. Us first and
the little people much later if there is any to spare.

[CocteausTwin]

(Check your mail when you get a chance)

[Kalima]

You too.

[AlieNation]

This is going to be the first episode of a new Chinese reality TV show called "Shoot The Press".

[MysticInd]

Carrying only 40 passengers on a 747... now isn't that conservative of them...

Did we foot the bill on that one???

[BlueStateMan]

It's the ENTIRE press corp.... & we DID "foot the bill".

Why not?

[WLA]

There was a time that it seemed we were getting our money's worth out of the 4th Estate. I'd like to see that again. Where is our next Helen Thomas? I'm not afraid to say it. I have a newscrush on Helen. Heh.

[CocteausTwin]

I think in some strange way this is funny. I hope they knew they were to not take any kind of real information. I wonder how many bugs were planted into the "inspected" luggage.

But all in all, a very sad state of affairs.

[abby4ever]

Not in some strange way, Cocteaus, it's just plain funny. Nobody was hurt. China is just wanting to strut a little bit.

[abby4ever]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think China's record on human rights is funny, at all. But a cocky, drunk-on-t­heir-own-p­ower press getting held up on plane, for hours, when they are used to the royal treatment? Funny.

[NochlessMonster]

I agree.... pretty sad.......­. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of that kind of thing over the next couple of weeks.....­......

[LeTroglo]

By now I am completely fed up with all that hysterical reporting, regarding whatever measures the Chinese may take against the press in China.
Again, American media condemns any other country but its own for the excesses commited by government officials on the press corps.
I've been an international correspondent for over a decade, for a major international news agency, and have been based here for the last five or six years or so.
Can tell you of the colleagues handcuffed by cops while covering Katrina in Louisiana. What if China deported foreigners protesters? What about that LAPD cop that politely suggested my wife (an international correspondent herself) to abstain from being seen with anti-war protesters-friends in LA, or run the risk of having her visa revoked?
My colleague photographer from a major news agency beaten by an angry mob of Cuban terrorist-­supporters in Miami while the police ignored (even laughed at) the whole thing? The CNN reporter blacklisted by TSA for questioning its no-fly list? Cindy Sheehan being thrown out ot the State of the Union address for wearing an anti-Bush shirt? Anti NAFTA protestors being shot rubber bullets while in Miami, while cops laughed at them? How many people your authorities arrest every time there's an anti-war protest in DC? What about that Fox news reporter-producer beaten with clubs by the LAPD while covering an immigration march in LA?

[MuseScavenger]

Just giving W's press the respect they're due.

[liberalsrheros]

hmmm, well i suppose i might get indignant if the press had been anything other than a talking point regurgitator for the white house the past 8 years.

while i'm all or freedom of the press, if the press doesn't take that obligation seriously i see no reason they should get special treatment. let them be treated like anyone else flying to china. welcome to the less rarefied air of the real world. maybe a little perspective will inform the beltway darlings.

lol, right!

[macintoshsauce]

Holy crap. Now if that does not provoke Washington to react I don't know what will. Oh, I forgot. They are our money overlords.­..

[authoritarianbootlicker]

They were just checking to see how many Chinese made products they were carrying and took that long to count it all.

[AdLib]

Maybe they were checking to see if they were bringing back in any products with lead paint they intentionally sent out of the country.

[Kalima]

Lol! Actually not a bad idea to ship all that stuff back." Return to sender" as
Elvis would sing.

[sacrebleu]

They were probably hoping Jahk Kafferty was aboard and they could detain and then summarily x-ecute him.

[incinerate]

"White House press charter receives the "custom of the port""

Yeah, the Chinese should give special treatment and allow known liars, dissemblers and pseudo American journalists, quickly into their country without inspection of their luggage for contraband, drugs and spy and espionage devices.

The U.S. has long used thousands of American "journalists" as NOC (Non Official Cover) CIA agents, as has MI5, MI6, KGB, and the FSB. However spy NOC "journalist" agents from non American nations get no special rights above ordinary tourists.

When you have a aggressor nation like the U.S. and a Bush regime which announces its god given right to make nuclear first strike attacks and regime changes upon any nation which does not toe the Bush line, why should China give the Presidential Press Plane any special treatment. They are not royalty, nor are the Olympic athletes. China should do us all a big favor and really detain and properly search and interrogate these Americans who are mostly phony "journalis­ts."

[Mort]

China's way of making a simple statement to the press...
We are in complete control and we are watching you very, very closely.
Forget the games. Forget international brotherhood. Forget diplomacy.
This is one tactical step in our agenda.

[ranchero42]

Well, duh. The Chinese and the GOP are brothers in arms against the most dangerous concept known to mankind: information.

[abby4ever]

***Forget the games. Forget international brotherhood. Forget diplomacy.­***

And forget all the promises we made when you gave us the Olympics. You were going to give them to us anyway, and you know it, you weren't about to irritate the world's fastest growing economy, and you wanting to cash in on that.