BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific

China attacks US spy plane vote

The US aircrew were held for 11 days

The official Xinhua news agency quoted a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the vote had been proposed by "a few anti-China members".

The surveillance plane made an emergency landing on Hainan island in April after a mid-air collision in which a Chinese fighter pilot died.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said: "This has been an attempt to obstruct the improvement of Sino-US relations."

'Communist piracy'

Members of the Republican-led House said they wanted to make sure that none of China's claims were paid.

Congress voted 424-6 to add language that would block such payments to a $38.5bn bill it was considering to fund the departments of Commerce, Justice and State next fiscal year.

One Republican congressman, Tom DeLay, described the episode as "communist piracy" and Chinese demands for compensation as "the deluded daydreams of a despotic regime".

The rejection of the claim seems to have put the Congress at odds with the Bush administration, which had said it would consider reimbursing "reasonable costs" related to returning the plane.

The spy plane incident has strained relations between the US and China, which have been further complicated by issues such as US missile defence technology tests and Chinese accusations that some visiting Chinese-Americans have been spies.