China prepares hero's farewell for missing pilot

China was preparing a hero’s farewell today for a fighter pilot missing after a mid-air collision with a US spy plane.

Preparations at the Great Hall of the People were under way as a team of American diplomats left Beijing after two days of inconclusive talks on the return of the US plane and Beijing’s demand for an end to American surveillance flights off its coast.

Foreign reporters were barred from the vast meeting hall facing Tiananmen Square in central Beijing where pilot Wang Wei was to receive a state funeral.

Wang has been proclaimed a "revolutionary martyr".

Wang’s F-8 jet crashed into the South China Sea after colliding with a US Navy EP-3E spy plane April 1. China called off a search for Wang last week.

American negotiators left after two days of talks on the return of the US plane, held by China since making an emergency landing on the southern island of Hainan after the collision.

The top American negotiator praised the overall tone of the meetings. They got off to a rocky start and the US team threatened to walk out on the first day, Wednesday, saying China was unwilling to discuss the return of the spy plane.

‘‘We had professional discussions, the meetings were very professionally handled and we are looking forward to getting our plane back,’’ US Deputy Undersecretary of Defence Peter F Verga said.

No deal was announced following the meetings at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, beyond an agreement to hold more talks at an undetermined future date.

‘‘We got some more work to do, there is nothing currently scheduled and we expect to hear back from the Chinese government,’’ Verga said at the Beijing airport.

Beijing said the US plane caused the collision by swinging suddenly into Wang’s fighter. It has demanded that Washington accept full blame. To back its claims, the Foreign Ministry yesterday showed video of what it called US fighters flying close to Chinese aircraft.

The administration of US President George W Bush said the Chinese fighter jet erred by accidentally running into the larger American plane.

It has rejected Chinese demands for an end to reconnaissance flights off its coast. There have been none since the collision, and the Bush administration is weighing when to resume them.

On Friday, state media kept up a blizzard of criticism aimed at the United States.

A cartoon in the English-language China Daily showed Uncle Sam, labelled ‘‘US spy’’, peeking with binoculars over a Chinese wall.

The paper also quoted experts at government-run think tanks blaming the United States for the lack of agreement in talks this week.

‘‘The self-contradictory and arrogant attitude of the United States toward the plane collision incident will prevent a settlement from being reached in current negotiations,’’ the article said.

In the talks, American negotiators presented a written proposal for US experts to inspect the plane in Hainan to determine whether to repair and fly it out or to ship it out in pieces, US officials said.

China has not said whether it will return the plane.

Satellite photos suggest Chinese experts are inspecting the plane’s sophisticated electronics.

The US negotiators also presented a proposal for ways to ensure that such collisions do not recur, the officials said. They proposed discussing it at a meeting of a special US-China military maritime commission. No date was set, but American officials said it might take place in two weeks.

Another irritant in US-China relations comes as Washington is to make a decision, possibly next week, on selling weapons to Taiwan. The communist Government considers the island a breakaway province and has threatened to use force to capture it.

The Bush administration has tried to separate the weapons package from the dispute over US spy flights. China bitterly resents the Taiwan arms sales.