BUSH PASSES FIRST FOREIGN-POLICY TEST WITH APLOMB

President Bush's handling of the standoff with China reveals he is going to approach foreign policy with the strategic interests of the United States as his foremost priority.

A senior U.S. official said the United States will refuse to discontinue reconnaissance flights like the one involved in the incident over the South China Sea.

Bush won't even consider negotiating the frequency or routes of surveillance flights.

In fact, the United States is already preparing to send another Navy EP-3E Aires spy plane down the China coast "within the next week."

Bush knows Chinese ideology is based on lies and their power is sustained by governmental coercion and suppression of personal liberties.

Such lawless regimes must be distrusted and their activities closely monitored, especially the production and deployment of weapons of mass destruction.

From the very onset of the incident we knew that a rational, prudent and calm adult was acting as our commander in chief.

We were further comforted by the knowledge that he has surrounded himself with the finest foreign policy experts on the planet.

Bush deliberately downplayed the conflict with China from the moment the news of the aerial mishap broke.

He remained unflappable as the days elapsed and tension mounted.

He did not allow criticism from either side of the political aisle to alter his course of bringing home our troops while preserving inviolate the strategic interests of the United States.

Some critics are maintaining that Bush blinked by expressing an apology to the Chinese and thereby compromised our strategic interests. I disagree.

I too sincerely regret that a Chinese pilot who was probably ordered by his government to harass our aircraft with dangerous cowboy maneuvers had to die.

I also feel sorry for his family and for the Chinese people, who are continually misled by their repressive leaders.

The Chinese people have no idea there is a debate over who caused the collision, let alone that America believes it was not to blame.

Despite the Chinese government's virtual enslavement of its people, this event illustrates that public opinion is far from irrelevant.

Why else would the government engage in such propaganda and deny basic freedoms of expression?

In fact, public opinion is what compelled the Chinese to insist on a semantic rendering of the letter to the effect that the United States had apologized.

Our awareness of the importance of Chinese public opinion -- both in reality and in the eyes of the Chinese leaders -- militates in favor of our continued efforts to promote openness and democracy for the Chinese mainland.

President Bush navigated through his first foreign policy challenge with sophistication and aplomb.

He threaded the diplomatic needle by securing the release of our airmen with language that allowed China to save face with its people.

But he did not express contrition for the manifestly legal actions of the United States.

The president's future actions will put China on notice that they no longer have a license to engage in unbridled aggression in East Asia.

~David Limbaugh is a Cape Girardeau lawyer, author and syndicated columnist.