Truth be told, what could they do? They did about all they could. The plane was spying on China and landed on their territory. What could they do to make them give it back? Start bombing? Unwise to attack a nation of 1.4 billion that is nuclear armed. When our U2 plane was shot down over the USSR, they held Gary Powers for TWO YEARS. There was little that could be done. In Korea in the 1950’s, we paid to get hold of a MiG so we could learn their secrets. This kind of behavior is common among competitors.
“The plane was spying on China and landed on their territory. “
The aircraft was performing intelligence collection in international airspace. It crash-landed on their territory because one of their untrained pilots collided with it.
We should have gifted them some cruise missile technology and destroyed our aircraft on their runway.