NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Main article: Targeting of civilian areas during Operation Allied Force

On May 12, the flag at the United States Consulate General in Hong Kong was lowered in respect and sorrow for the Chinese people for a day as the plane carrying the bodies of victims of the embassy bombing came home to Beijing. Similar gestures were done in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang, along with the US embassy in Beijing.^[1]

On May 7, 1999 in Operation Allied Force, NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese citizens and outraging the Chinese public. At the time of the bombing, the embassy was located in Novi Beograd – later, a new site was designated for the embassy in Dedinje. NATO later apologized for the bombing, saying that it occurred because of an outdated map provided by the CIA. Few Chinese accepted this explanation, believing the strike had been deliberate.^[2] World press reaction covered a wide editorial spectrum. A report by the UK newspaper The Guardian and the Danish newspaper Politiken concluded that the strike was deliberate.^[3] Other sources such as Washington Post, New York Times, Chigago Tribune, and The Times maintained that while culpability rested with innacurate strike planning, the attack was not deliberate.^[4] CIA director George Tenet said the operation which led to the bombing of the Chinese embassy was the only one organized and directed by his agency.

The three Chinese citizens killed in the attack were Shao Yunhuan (邵云环), Xu Xinghu (许杏虎) and his wife, Zhu Ying (朱颖).

[edit] Chinese reaction

The bombing sparked outrage among the public in China and provoked demonstrations outside the United States embassy in Beijing and U.S. consulates in other Chinese cities.

By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.

[edit] US response

According to the CIA, the headquarters of the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP) - (Yugoimport SDPR) was the intended target but the process to locate the target was severely flawed. The technique to locate the coordinates of the FDSP headquarters from the street address should not have been used for aerial targeting because the method only provides an approximate location. The true location of the FDSP headquarters was about 300 meters away from calculated coordinates (the Chinese embassy). This flaw in the address location process went undetected. A secondary process to determine whether any diplomatic or other facilities off-limits to targeting were nearby was also flawed. Multiple databases within the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense all reflected the Embassy in its pre-1996 location in Belgrade. If the databases had accurately located the Chinese Embassy, the misidentification of the FDSP building would have been recognized and corrected. Three days before the bombing, an intelligence officer realized the FDSP building was a block away from the identified location but this information failed to stop the bombing because of miscommunication.^[5]

After the event, former Clinton administration Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan Shirk expressed her belief that the Chinese government used the bombing as a political opportunity. She claims that China refused to accept Bill Clinton's initial phone call to Jiang Zemin to apologize as well as refusing a U.S. envoy and ambassador seeking to convey similar messages. The Chinese Communist Party declared immediately after the bombing through the People's Daily and other media that the bombing had been intentional, not accidental, and supplied buses to transport demonstrators to the U.S. embassy and consulates to protest.

Shirk pointed out that the bombing occurred less than a month after a mass demonstration of 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing and less than a month before the tenth anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989. Shirk claims the bombing was seized upon as an opportunity to direct Chinese anger outward rather than toward the Party.^[6]

[edit] Alternative views

In 2005, the Centre for Research on Globalization claimed that the attack was deliberate and was "based on intelligence that then Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević was to have been in the Embassy at the time of the attack".^[7] The report does not provide sources or independent confirmation, adding to the long list of conspiracy theories concerning US motivations for the attack.

The US media were criticized for overlooking the bombing by a national media watch group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting ^[8].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• CIA takes rap for embassy attack by Martin Kettle, The Guardian, April 10, 2000