Letter of the two sorries
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The Letter of the two sorries was the letter delivered by the United States Ambassador Joseph Prueher to Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan of the People's Republic of China to defuse the Hainan Island incident in April 2001. Upon the collision between the U.S. surveillance aircraft and the Chinese fighter aircraft, the U.S. plane made an emergency landing on Chinese territory, while the Chinese fighter pilot and his plane were lost. The delivery of the letter led to the release of the U.S. crew from Chinese custody, as well as the return of the disassembled plane.
The letter stated that the United States was "very sorry" for the death of Chinese pilot Wang Wei, and they also apologized for entering Chinese airspace and performing the emergency landing without authorization. Significantly, the United States did not apologize for conducting signals reconnaissance off the coast of China, nor did the United States explicitly accept responsibility for the collision, only expressing their that they were sorry for the loss of Wang Wei and "sincere regret over (China's) missing pilot and aircraft"
The letter itself was written in English and the United States did not offer an official translation into Chinese. This was intentional, as Chinese contains many different levels of apologies or regret, each denoting a different level of responsibility. English is more vague and ambiguous in this regard, and the use of English allowed each side to interpret the level of responsibility and regret themselves.
