Admiral Timothy Keating, the outgoing head of the US Pacific Command, thinks “every day” about Hainan - the Chinese island that, in April 2001, was the setting for the first major policy crisis of George W. Bush’s young presidency.

A US navy surveilllance aircraft had collided with a Chinese jet fighter sent to intercept it. The chinese pilot died while the 24-strong American crew, whose plane landed safely at a People’s Liberation Army airbase, was detained for eleven days.