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Spy Plane Collision: U.S. And China

On April 21, 2001, the United States and China faced their first major incident of the 21st century when a U.S. spy plane accidentally collided with a Chinese fighter plane. The dialogue that followed between the two countries, as well as the tenor of the incident as reported in the international press, provide some interesting and insightful glimpses into how these major powers handled the incident in the days and weeks that followed. Although the mainstream media in both China and the United States reported the key facts and elements of the incident in a similar fashion, the spin that was ultimately placed on the event by the Chinese press was clearly indicative of the Asian state's desire to portray the United States as being at fault; however, because both countries have an enormous stake in ensuring continued friendly relations for trade purposes, the Chinese press eventually adopted an official position that would allow the United States to "save face" while ensuring that the killed Chinese pilot involved was lauded as a fearless hero of the state and a martyr to its cause. To determine how these events played out in the respective mainstream media of China and the United States, as well as the international media, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to identify how the spy plane collision was portrayed, what elements are regarded as important for analysis. This study compares the two accounts from China and the U.S., and to a lesser extent, the international media, by grouping the media accounts into three separate dimensions: 1) visual framing, 2) contextual framing and 3) operational framing, to determine how these factors played out in the spy plane incident. These terms are operationalized and the analysis of the media accounts is followed by a summary of the research in the concluding paragraph.