Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad Thursday lamented the United States' spying on China.

"I regret that there should be this incident. In the first place, it should not have happened and no country in the world would want that they be spied on," he said during his visit to the Information Ministry in Kuala Lumpur when asked to comment on the Sunday incident in which a US surveillance aircraft landed in China after hitting a Chinese fighter jet whose pilot is still missing.

Mahathir hoped the matter can be settled by both sides.

(Xinhua 04/06/2001)