After last week’s collision between an American EP-3 surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8 jet fighter, the American crew of 21 men and three women are still being held on Hainan island in

the South China Sea, and the Chinese government is still seeking a formal U.S. apology for the collision and the presumed loss of Chinese pilot Wang Wei. Though U.S. officials were

allowed to meet with eight of the crew last Saturday, neither group shows signs of moving to make a fast and easy concession.

The American plane made an emergency landing on Hainan after the April 1 collision. Though China asserts that the EP-3 was at fault in the collision, various American reports have

shown that it was the F-8 that caused the impact. Whether it was the fighter that dipped into the EP-3 or the other way around, the resultant collision forced the landing of the American

plane and left the Chinese plane reeling into the ocean. It’s pilot, Wang, was said to have parachuted from his plane. After extended search efforts on the part of the Chinese Navy, he is

still unaccounted for and presumed dead.

The EP-3, which carries ultra-sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment, was flying off the Chinese coast, eavesdropping on China's communications in a pattern which was intensified during the final months of the Clinton administration. Until now, both its surveillance flights and the close-quarters attention from Chinese fighter planes had been a routine occurrence, but the collision has qualified as a high profile international incident.

Since the collision, China has held the American crew in custody and also has the plane in possession. The crewmembers reportedly said in their first visit with an American official that

they did have time to destroy much if not all of the most sensitive data and hardware on board before Chinese troops boarded the aircraft on the ground.

Though President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have repeatedly expressed regret and concern for the missing Chinese pilot, China continues to demand a more consequential apology.

Reiterating statements from Bush’s administration, Powell has said that no U.S. apology to China was needed because the U.S. had done nothing wrong.

"There is no reason to believe the crew (of the EP-3 electronic surveillance plane) did anything wrong or improper,'' Powell said.

China remains firm in her insistence however. Deputy Premier Qian Qichen wrote: "It is essential for the U.S. side to face up to the facts squarely, adopt a positive and practical approach, and apologize to the Chinese people." He said an apology was of the "utmost importance."

"China's position is clear," a ministry spokeswoman said. "The United States must admit full responsibility and apologize to the Chinese people, and it must take sincere and effective measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again."

Yesterday, U.S. diplomats visited the plane's crew for a fourth time in the week-long standoff, pushing for two "unfettered" visits a day.

According to a U.S State Department spokesman, the diplomats, during one of the first of three, hour-long meetings, gave the crew members sports news and confirmed that they had received e-mails from their families passed along earlier. Brigade General Neal Sealock, who lead the delegation, said the crewmembers were "in very high spirits ... doing well and looking forward to going home."

Besides the issue of who was actually at fault in the collision, where international flying space ends and Chinese territory begins has also come into some question. Though the collision occurred in international airspace dozens of miles from Chinese territory, Chinese officials say that spy planes operating in such close proximity threaten its national security. China claims that the whole of the South China Sea, extending as far out as 200 nautical miles (230 standard miles) from its shores, is its exclusive economic zone. The internationally recognized limits are 12 miles from land.

China's main army newspaper, the People's Liberation Army Daily, Sunday condemned what it called hostile U.S. spy flights off the Chinese coast.

"Frequent military surveillance activities along China's coast do not have a good and peaceful objective, rather they are clearly hostile in nature," said its editorial.

In a sign of hardening US Congressional sentiment, the Republican head of the House International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, described the US crew as “hostages.”

"I would call them hostages. They are being held against their will, and five days is a rather long time, especially if you're the one being held in detention."

Members of Bush’s administration have indicated that the tensions between the two countries are dangerously high. Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and the president's national

security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the extended standoff threatens to make it harder to repair relations between the two countries.

''I don't want to put a timetable on it; every day that goes by without having it resolved raises the risks to the long-term relationship,'' Cheney said on NBC's ''Meet the Press.''

Administration avoided spelling out specific consequences of further delay, however lawmakers frustrated by the extended impasse said it could lead to a bitter fight later this year if Congress is asked to extend trade benefits to Beijing, as well as incurring possible U.S. opposition to China's bid to stage the Olympics in 2008, and influencing an arms package Bush is now considering for Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.

''There are a lot of very significant things which if China would ... step up and solve this thing now, will more likely occur,'' said GOP Sen. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

As a probably attempt to ease some of this tension, White House officials said President Bush answered a letter from the missing pilot's distraught wife who wrote to Bush calling on him

to apologize for the incident and accusing his administration of being “cowardly” for not already having done so.

According to Xinhua, China’s news agency, Ruan Guoqin wrote, "I cannot figure out why you sent the U.S. crew members to spy along China's coast from such a great distance, and why they rammed my husband's plane." Chinese Defense Minister Chi said he thought the letter was "well written."

Bush's letter of response was sent Sunday to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing which forwarded it to the Chinese Foreign Ministry for delivery to the pilot's wife, the White House said. The text

of the letter was not available.

''The purpose of the letter is to respond in a humanitarian way, in an American way, to a widow who is grieving,'' Powell said on ''Fox News Sunday.'' ''Whatever you think about the

politics of it, she's lost her husband.''