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introduction
Intelligence is an indispensable part of war - whether it is ancient war or modern war, whether it is the sword fight of cold weapons or the roar of hot weapons, or even the modern aircraft artillery and Butan coordination, intelligence is an extremely important part of war.
(There were scouts in ancient times for intelligence searches)
Even in the daily communication between countries, one more piece of intelligence is one more bargaining chip in future negotiations with the other side. Therefore, all countries attach great importance to information within their borders and do not want it to be easily leaked.
However, there are still some countries that like to rely on their leading scientific and technological and military strength, using various methods to steal intelligence from other countries, and even bluntly spy on intelligence, to carry out their "espionage missions".
The United States is one of the countries with the most powerful military power.
(U.S. reconnaissance aircraft)
For example, on 1 April 2001, the United States sent an EP-3 reconnaissance plane to the skies over the mainland waters to spy on the mainland's borders in an upright manner.
Although the US reconnaissance plane was later forced to make a forced landing under the heroic sacrifice of the mainland pilot, was captured by the mainland, and did not complete its mission, this still could not hide the essence of their espionage.
According to rumors, China obtained a lot of technology from the reconnaissance aircraft forced to land by the US military, so in the following years, the mainland's reconnaissance aircraft have developed significantly.
(Mainland Reconnaissance-6)
So what is the truth? What technology did the mainland acquire from the US reconnaissance aircraft?
First, the top secret intelligence that was released: the US assessment of the collision in the South China Sea
In 2017, Snowden, a former CIA employee who fled for unveiling the U.S. "Prism program," released a 117-page document. This is not as unusual to many as it was at the beginning.
(Information from Snowden's revelations)
After all, in the years of exile, Snowden will release some documents from time to time to attract everyone's attention, on the one hand, to increase his own importance, on the other hand, to make American assassins dare not do it easily.
But the information released this time made countless Chinese netizens widen their eyes: because what Snowden released was a comprehensive report completed by the US Navy three months after the former collision of aircraft in the South China Sea!
(Snowden)
This is the South China Sea aircraft collision incident, and it is a pain in the hearts of countless Chinese! At the time of the incident, I don't know how many Chinese felt humiliated and their dignity trampled on.
American reconnaissance aircraft come and go wantonly in the airspace of the mainland, and the pilots cannot return fire, they can only defend the dignity of the country with their lives ... The plane collision incident in the South China Sea is still a deep scar on China.
(Simulation of the South China Sea collision incident)
Because of this, the document released by Snowden quickly attracted the attention of Chinese netizens.
Under the curiosity and translation of Chinese netizens, the content of the report was briefly summarized: the US military report released by Snowden contained some top-secret details of the collision in the South China Sea, as well as some actions carried out by the reconnaissance crew after the impact.
It can be said that the report released by Snowden is a powerful supplement to the South China Sea aircraft collision incident, allowing us to have a deeper and more complete understanding of the incident.
But some Chinese netizens are curious: South China Sea collision? What happened between China and the United States in the South China Sea in 2001? Why did the United States make a top-secret intelligence assessment for this accident?
(South China Sea Collision Incident)
2. Collision in the South China Sea: A spy plane that trespasses into mainland waters
On April 1, 2001, as the sun first rose, Kadena Air Force Base, a U.S. Air Force base in Okinawa, Japan, was already busy at work.
Under the guidance of the US military ground staff, a reconnaissance plane similar in size to the Boeing 737 passenger plane, the EP-3 reconnaissance plane, slowly took off, carrying 24 crew members and began to monitor the perimeter of the waters of Okinawa.
(EP3 Reconnaissance Aircraft)
It's just that this time the surveillance is slightly different from the previous one, and they will go deeper and farther away from Japanese waters to explore the intelligence of a country bordering Japan. This country is China.
U.S. surveillance is not surprising — after all, it's their traditional art.
As early as the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States monitored, collected intelligence and monitored the military forces of various countries around the world, but at that time, most of them were aimed at their biggest rival, the Soviet Union.
(Soviet Union)
And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their potential, most powerful and most powerful opponent changed from the Soviet Union to China. Therefore, the United States has increased its surveillance of China, and it is against this background that the EP-3 reconnaissance plane took off from the US military base in Okinawa.
You know, this reconnaissance plane is not an ordinary cargo.
This was one of the most advanced and powerful reconnaissance aircraft in the world at that time, carrying the world's most cutting-edge reconnaissance equipment, and there were only a dozen of this reconnaissance aircraft in the entire United States, which fully demonstrated the importance that the United States attached to China's intelligence collection.
The planes rumbled, and the clouds gradually disappeared behind them - and soon the US reconnaissance plane was over China's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. They will collect some conventional intelligence, monitor reconnaissance activities in the sea, and monitor the movement of submarines and land troops on some continents.
(Picture and text are not related)
However, the mainland is not a soft persimmon, and after detecting that the US reconnaissance plane flew into the airspace of the mainland for no reason, two J-8 fighters quickly set sail to track and monitor the reconnaissance plane.
One of the two fighters is the main engine and the other is a wingman, and the pilot named Wang Wei is responsible for piloting the wingman.
At that time, the US reconnaissance aircraft had been on a six-hour mission, and when they sensed that mainland fighters were intercepting them, they used a variety of methods to escape pursuit, but they achieved little.
(J-8 fighter)
Perhaps it was madness that filled the pilot's heart, or perhaps the arrogance in their hearts made them feel that they did not dare to treat them Chinese, or perhaps they wanted to escape the pursuit through this method - when the wingman piloted by Wang Wei was close to intercepting the reconnaissance plane, the US reconnaissance plane suddenly turned around.
At this time, the problem is big - high-flying aircraft are extremely difficult to control, not to mention when approaching interception, the other party suddenly turns around.
When everyone did not react, the reconnaissance plane collided with the propeller of the fighter, the J-8 wingman was directly broken in two, and Wang Wei catapulted to survive and disappeared into the vast sea.
(Schematic diagram of the collision in the South China Sea)
And the reconnaissance aircraft of the US army did not turn out well, their aircraft were also greatly damaged, all means of control were almost completely disabled, and in a short time they descended by a full two hundred meters!
But they gradually stabilized the plane. It's just that the power system of the aircraft has been damaged, and the reconnaissance aircraft simply cannot return to a normal flight attitude.
In the end, under the pilots of the US military pilots, the damaged, advanced US reconnaissance plane made a forced landing at Hainan's Lingshui Airport, and its crew members were arrested and strictly guarded by the mainland.
(US reconnaissance plane made a forced landing in Hainan)
Third, crazy destruction with little effect
This is what most people know, the cause and effect of the plane collision incident in the South China Sea. But from Snowden's report, we can get more details that the United States can withhold.
This is what happened between the two planes colliding and the forced landing.
After the reconnaissance plane made the decision to make a forced landing on the territory of the mainland, the crew immediately all dispatched to carry out a common work - to destroy all the equipment inside the aircraft.
(Picture and text are not related)
After all, this aircraft is hitched on many advanced equipment and secret materials, and even the "black history" of the United States.
If it falls into the hands of the mainland, the evil United States is likely to fall into the hands of the two countries, and even China may use these technologies to catch up and build its own advanced reconnaissance aircraft.
In order to prevent this from happening, the crew of the reconnaissance aircraft will choose to destroy all the equipment inside the aircraft. But they only had twenty minutes left, so there was only one solution: violent destruction.
(U.S. military crew)
In a panic, the crew found the "Emergency Landing Request in Local Territory" issued by the US military, according to which they violently destroyed all classified documents and equipment on the plane.
They found an axe from the plane and relied on it to wreak havoc on computers, equipment and large instruments.
Those without tools smash hard things, and when they break the gap, they put their hands in and tear out the electronic circuits inside and break them.
(Picture and text are not related)
Others picked up a laptop on the plane and broke him in two.
There is simply too much equipment on reconnaissance aircraft - multiband radars, communication and navigation radars, pulse signal receivers, radio receivers... If you want to destroy these things in a short time, even if the crew goes up together.
Because the U.S. military was built with their safety in mind at the beginning of its construction - most of these equipment were set up very strongly, which was prepared to prevent a strong impact.
Ironically, these safety protections have now become a roadblock for crew members to destroy equipment. They can only do their best to damage these things, such as dismantling the equipment, smashing these precision instruments with all their strength, etc.
(Picture and text are not related)
But there are simply too many obstacles for the crew - on the one hand, they have only extremely short events to do these things, on the other hand, bumpy planes, shaky inner cabins are also hindrances.
At the same time, the crew can always find something important in the cabin that has to be destroyed, such as a crew member who finds a large briefcase, which he uses as a tool to smash equipment.
But while working on it, the sturdy briefcase was suddenly knocked open and the documents inside fell out. The crew saw that these were encryption keys! There are also two notebooks and a codebook! Everyone started destroying these things in a hurry.
(Damaged notebook)
But these keys were so many that until the forced landing was about to be made, there were still sixteen encryption keys on the plane, as well as an unknown number of codebooks and notebooks, including even a large computer that processed intelligence signals!
Not to mention the various advanced equipment that destroyed the surface and the terminal, not the internal installation.
At 9:33 on April 1, the plane successfully made a forced landing, and this advanced reconnaissance plane temporarily became the mainland's bag.
(Dismantling U.S. military aircraft)
Fourth, the outcome of the incident: The US side was forced to make concessions, and woe depended on it
At three o'clock in the afternoon of April 1, the US military issued a statement on the Internet.
In the statement, the US side asked China to guarantee the integrity of the aircraft and the safety of the crew, and never mentioned an apology. On April 2, China made its position clear to the United States and demanded an apology.
But for the United States, which has always been domineering, apologize? Although I invaded your airspace and caused your casualties, my plane was broken, it should be you who apologize to me! Then-President George W. Bush kept urging and warning China to return the plane, completely ignoring the apology.
(Stern George W. Bush)
This made the mainland angry - obviously you did something wrong, why didn't you even say an apology? What's more, Wang Wei has not yet returned, I am afraid that he has already been sacrificed, don't you realize a little mistake!
In the face of the hegemony and rudeness of the United States, the mainland has repeatedly protested, and from April 5 to 10, the two sides have held 11 arduous negotiations; at the same time, the mainland has also put pressure on the United States in terms of public opinion, and many American people have also returned to the scene and demanded that the United States apologize.
Under many factors, the United States finally reluctantly relented.
On April 11, U.S. Ambassador to China Joseph Prueher delivered a letter of apology to the mainland government, the crew left China on April 12, and on June 18, the EP-3 reconnaissance plane began to be disassembled and transported back to the United States in batches, a process that continued until July 3.
(Prueher photo)
From April 1 to June 18, this advanced reconnaissance plane stayed in mainland China for more than two months! In the past two months, the mainland naturally cannot do nothing.
In fact, as early as the early days, the mainland crew surveyed the reconnaissance aircraft and found a lot of secrets on it - including the coordinates of the mainland airfield, the location of communication stations, and so on.
At the same time, Continental also found the keys on the plane that the crew didn't have time to clean — which led to the United States having to change the passwords of 250,000 GPS users to prevent data breaches, although we won't be as tasteless as they are.
(Dismantling U.S. military aircraft)
And the various advanced technologies and equipment carried on the reconnaissance aircraft are even more fragrant! Even if due to the agreement with the US side, the aircraft cannot be disassembled and technically reversed, but just observing and inferring is enough to open the door for mainland staff.
For example, the tuner on the EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft was greatly inspired by the Chinese staff, so the design ability in this area was greatly improved; There is also the distribution of lines on the EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft, which also has great reference value;
Of course, the overall layout of the EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft is also clear, which provides a lot of help to our own reconnaissance aircraft design.
(Dismantled aircraft)
A Chinese engineer who participated in the survey of the EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft once described it as follows: "There is a circuit board I have studied for half my life and have never found a breakthrough, but when I saw the circuit board on the US military plane, I immediately figured out the key to the problem." ”
This is indeed the case; since the plane collision incident in the South China Sea, the mainland's reconnaissance aircraft have begun to develop at a high speed, and various technical fields have also made certain progress.
Although there is no direct evidence that the development of reconnaissance technology is directly related to the South China Sea aircraft collision incident, it is necessary to learn from, imitate and broaden the thinking to a certain extent.
(Picture and text are not related)
Resources:
Charlie. Perspective EP-3E electronic reconnaissance aircraft. National Defense Science and Technology,2001(05)
TANG Jiaxuan. Recall the "plane collision incident" in the South China Sea in 2001 [OL].Party Literature, 2009
After the South China Sea plane collision incident, Snowden exposed the US military's panic response [OL].National Defense Times vanguard, 2021-04-23