Chinese people in Beijing and Shanghai cities and Hainan Province today condemned the U.S. spy plane for its intrusion into the Chinese territorial air space near the southern part of Hainan Island.

Wu Hongyong, deputy party secretary of Dongcheng District of Beijing city said that the U.S. surveillance aircraft has obviously broke into China's territorial air space, resulted in a damage and crash of military airplane on duty.

He said that the stance of the United States on the incident revealed the United State's nature hegemonism.

Sun Boqiu, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that he hopes the U.S. government will act in line with the overall interests of the

two countries and make an apology for the incident to the Chinese people as soon as possible.

Zhou Hanmin, a legal expert in Shanghai, said that the collision is a serious political issue and the responsibility of the incident is on the U.S. side according to international law.

He said Chinese people support President Jiang Zemin's words on the incident, which has defended China's sovereignty and represented the will of the people.

He said that he believed the Chinese government would well handle the incident according to international law and the highest interest of China.

Fu Dunchun, associate professor with the Hainan University, said that the action of U.S. military aircraft has severely infringed upon China's sovereignty.

The U.S. plane's intrusion into China's airspace should be certainly opposed and condemned, Fu said.

Chinese people support the government's position on this issue and urge the U.S. government to give a satisfactory reply as soon as possible.

(Xinhua 04/04/2001)