Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade

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The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, ten years after the bombing

On May 7, 1999 at 11:46 pm, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade , the capital of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under " Operation Allied Forces " . She was hit by five 2000-pound JDAM GPS-guided missiles from a B-2 launching from Whiteman Air Force Base , Missouri. Three Chinese journalists were killed, two of whom worked for Guangming Daily and one for Xinhua News Agency. A total of 21 people were injured. The event caused an international sensation, as it concerned the message of a state not involved in the Kosovo conflict . NATO's intention was to meet the Yugoslav Federal Office for Resupply and Supply (FDSP); however, the Chinese embassy was mistakenly met. The Chinese government reacted with outrage and skepticism to US President Bill Clinton's quick apology . She demanded an immediate investigation and clarification of the facts.

New York Times investigation

Causes and Motives

In the course of the war in Kosovo, NATO carried out the military operation " Operation Allied Force ", which included 2,000 targets in Serbia, including the Federal Office for Supply and Supply, which turned out to be the Chinese embassy. The New York Times interviewed more than 30 NATO officials in Washington and Europe, describing the bombing of the Chinese embassy as the result of a range of lack of expertise and poor judgment on the part of those involved in many places.

The original plan of NATO was to bomb the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for two nights and, with interruptions during the day, to offer President Slobodan Milosevic the opportunity to consent to NATO's demands to withdraw the Serbian troops from Kosovo. The realization that the Serbian President will not comply with these demands raised the question of NATO bombing politically sensitive targets. When NATO began bombing on March 24, 1999, 219 targets were scheduled for all of Serbia. At the end of the war, 1,021 targets were targeted, of which they actually carried out around 650.

The CIA submitted its first target for the war, which was selected by its Counter-Proliferation Division. However, they had neither specialist knowledge of the Balkans nor of bomb targets. Officials in the Counter-Proliferation Division saw the war as an opportunity to destroy the headquarters of the Federal Office of Supply and Supply, as it had long been suspected of being involved in smuggling rocket fragments into places like Libya and Iraq. In addition, the Federal Office was suspected of supplying the Serbian armed forces with spare parts for rockets, artillery shells and mortar shells. Despite the mention of this objective in at least three meetings, the location of the targeted headquarters was not discussed.

Course of goal setting

The chief blamed officer was a retired Army officer who had been contracted to work in the department. He was given the task of locating the headquarters of the directorate. He called the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA, today: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ) in Washington on April 9, 1999 and requested a map of Belgrade. Using this card, two tourist cards and just the address, the officer tried to pinpoint the headquarters. The NIMA map produced in 1997 contained important buildings, landmarks, special features, but no street names. Using the landmark on the headquarters of Milosevic's Socialist Party , which was bombed by NATO during the war, the officer orientated himself and located what he thought was the headquarters. With this selection, he called NIMA on April 12 or 13, 1999 and asked for satellite images that he received on April 14, 1999. At that time, a NIMA analyst assigned the building the number - 0251WA0017 - the military's bombing encyclopedia, a worldwide directory of potential targets and other landmarks. The satellite images left no doubt as to their accuracy. Given the self-initiative taken by the officer, a perfect proposal was created. Downloading the form from the military's secure intranet and filling it in with the “bombing encyclopedia” number as well as the eight-digit length and width information completed the overall picture. The motion raised no further questions and was immediately cleared by Brigadier General Roderick J. Isler, the assistant secret service director for military assistance. It then went to the European Command , which did not initiate a thorough review by the United General Staff.

On April 28, 1999, the European planners assigned the destination a serial number - No .: 493. The essential information on the objective was hereby reduced to one document. This should be presented to President Bill Clinton and the other NATO executives under the designation "Belgrade Warehouse" 1 with the link to the headquarters of the Federal Office for Resupply and Supply. An officer who previously worked in the Counter-Proliferation Division but had no authority to review objectives learned unofficially about the objectives of the directorate. On April 29, 1999, that officer telephoned a NIMA analyst that the real address of the directorate was 1000 yards south. On May 3, 1999, the NIMA analyst made six more images, and these confirmed to the skeptical officer that the objective was not in the direction of the directorate. He expressed his concern to the military officers in Naples and left his place of work for a three-day course. Upon his return on May 7, 1999, he again learned unofficially that the target was on the list for that night. A second call to Naples and a conversation with another officer made it clear that the B-2 long-range bomber was already en route from the Missouri Air Force Base.

The Observer

In relation to the article in the British newspaper The Observer , the bombing is suggested to be premeditated. Your sources are three NATO employees: a NATO air traffic controller in Naples, an intelligence officer who was stationed in Macedonia, and a senior officer at headquarters in Brussels. According to them, the Chinese embassy was deliberately targeted for working on behalf of the Serbian government by providing transmission of information from the Yugoslav military and suspected of monitoring and counter-attacking NATO cruise missiles. Based on signals from the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade 24 hours after the bombing of President Milosevic's residence on April 23, 1999, this was assumed. The official destination was the Yugoslav Federal Office for Supply and Supply (FDSP). However, the Observer revealed that the Federal Office was never at this address, but 500 meters away.

Another indication of knowing the address of the embassy is the interception of this address since 1996 by the CIA , MI6 and the GCHQ . Also, the Chinese embassy was on a non-target list with the correct address rather than its old one, as the United States and NATO claimed. The British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook denied this.

consequences

The American flag hangs at half-mast in front of the consulate in Hong Kong in memory of the victims of the attack

One day later, on May 8, 1999, US President Bill Clinton apologized for standing on the tarmac at an airport in the storm-ravaged Oklahoma, which gave the Chinese government the impression that the incident was not particularly important to the Americans. When the latter noticed, he tried several times to contact Chinese President Jiang Zemin , but was always turned away. More formal apologies followed, including from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright , both at the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC, and by letter to China’s Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan , from the US Ambassador to China and from NATO, who issued a statement . This expresses repentance and condolences to the victims, their families and the Chinese government. NATO has never and will never deliberately attack civilians; however, the air strikes would only stop as soon as the conditions for the peaceful negotiation of the Kosovo conflict were accepted by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

However, China believes the statement that the target was wrongly located is not credible, as the artillery mainly hit the part of the building where the secret service was housed and, apart from that, US diplomats had already visited the embassy at the address . Both the Chinese government and Russian President Boris Yeltsin described the approach as "barbaric," to which President Clinton replied:

“It wasn't barbaric. What is barbaric is what Milosevic (President of Yugoslavia) did. It's tragic. It's awful. What is barbaric is the deliberate "ethnic cleansing" it has been producing for a decade. "

On May 10, 1999, China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan submitted the four demands that the United States must meet in order to restore relations. He calls for apologies and official US and NATO declarations, a complete and thorough investigation and quick publication of the results, severe punishment of those responsible and compensation for life and property. As a result, Clinton called President Jiang to assure him that the US would open a full investigation.

In the week after the bombing, the Chinese government, announced by State Department spokesman Zhu Bangzao, broke off three dialogues with the United States on military exchanges, human rights and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. As a result, the Chinese refused to allow US military ships to dock in Hong Kong harbor; the US Air Force was not allowed to land in Hong Kong.

United States Under Secretary of State and Special Envoy Thomas R. Pickering and his delegation consisting of representatives from the State Department , the White House , the Department of Defense and the CIA delivered the results of the investigation and a letter of apology from Clinton . They said that three main mistakes led to the bombing of the wrong building. The original destination was the Yugoslav Federal Office for Resupply and Supply , located about 300 meters from the embassy , which was considered a legitimate military target as it supplied the Yugoslav army with ammunition.

The first mistake was the localization technique used to find out exact coordinates of the federal office, which however turned out to be the Chinese embassy. The CIA employee used a technique that was used in the army in the field, but was unsuitable for such a precise concern. In addition, two publicly accessible maps from the years 1989 and 1996 were used, which showed an outdated address of the embassy and a map of the NIMA from 1997, on which it was also not marked.

The second mistake was that although US diplomats had already visited the embassy at the address, it was never stored in military or intelligence databases. This resulted in no possible collateral damage being indicated in the systems.

The third mistake was the final inspection before the air strike was carried out. Since one relied on the correctness of the given maps and data, neither of the previous two errors had been discovered. Pickering says that the investigation cannot blame either the B-2 crew or the executives because the mislocation was based on incorrect, old data.

Later, on April 9, 2000, it was announced that the CIA had fired the guilty party and issued six other employees notice. The United States has, according to government reports, taken steps to prevent such errors in the future.

The Chinese judge the results that Pickering presented as inadequate and demand compensation. On July 30, 1999, the two states passed a resolution to pay 4.5 million US dollars for the victims of the air strike. The payment was called a "voluntary reparation payment" by the Americans and was paid on August 25, 1999 from the budget of the US Department of Defense. Another order to cover the material damage was announced on December 16, 1999, whereby the US had to pay $ 28 million to China and China to pay US $ 2.87 million to the US. The $ 2.87 million was triggered by demonstrations in front of US embassies in several major Chinese cities in the days following the air strike. The US described the size of the payment as compensating for the damage to the building and furniture, the destroyed Chinese antiques and technical equipment in the Chinese embassy, ​​as well as covering the cost of the temporary accommodation of the Chinese embassy staff who were housed in the building complex. The sum was paid from the Economic Support Fund, which is available for US security and political interests.

Six weeks after the air strike, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elite tried to reestablish their previous relationships. Although the military relations were dormant a little longer, the economic, media and educational ties were initially rebuilt. Chinese authorities consistently motivated American companies to continue investing in China and not to withdraw skilled workers. In education, in particular, emphasis was placed on maintaining the Fulbright program , given that they had had bad experiences when they were deposed after the Tian'anmen tragedy .

Chinese reactions

From noon on May 8, 1999, Chinese civilians reacted by setting fire to the US Consul General's premises in Chengdu, demonstrating and rioting. The cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenyang and Guangzhou were affected, where mainly US embassies, but also British and German embassies and consulates, were attacked by at least 30,000 Chinese.

In Chengdu, some of the protesters reached the eaves of the US consulate, while the German consulate general was attacked in Guangzhou. The most violent demonstrations took place in Beijing. A few hours after the air strike, students from Beijing universities were driven by bus columns into the embassy district and petitioned the US embassy. Some wore T-shirts with targets and the words “Target” on them, which were already becoming a custom in Belgrade. Students, schoolchildren, workers and Buddhist monks pelted the US embassy with stones, food, paint bottles, glass bottles and Molotov cocktails in the afternoon , and cars with embassy signs were damaged. The embassy was completely closed. Fears that the Chinese might storm the embassy began to liquidate confidential content. Meanwhile, the embassy website was permanently under hacker attacks, which were successfully blocked. The US diplomats holed up in the embassy for several days. The police formed a separation wall so that although no one could join the demonstrators, the demonstrators were not prevented from attacking. Chinese security forces at the embassies sometimes failed to carry out their duties. The mass demonstrations ended after three days.

Some Western journalists accused the Chinese government of the protests, believing that they could have been stopped. Among other things, the publication of the US and NATO apologies was delayed until May 11, 1999. The official justification from China was that they were so superficial that it would cause even more anger among the people. In addition to failing to act during the riot, the Chinese government announced that allowing a controlled reaction (of the people) would prevent a major outburst of anger. The CCP said the party has been unable to rein in the people's anger. The state media were also said to have contributed to the unrest by reporting that the air strike was premeditated and by publishing patriotic slogans such as “China will not be bullied”. It was also revealed that the bus columns, filled with angry students and schoolchildren driving from the city's universities and middle schools, had been organized by the CCP. The inmates were recruited to the campuses of the educational institutes by the CCP committees and encouraged to protest. In retrospect, protesters admitted that they had been manipulated by the Chinese media.

President Jiang Zemin delivered a speech at the gathering on May 13, 1999 to welcome those who had returned from Belgrade, in which he expressed his wish for world peace and rejection of hegemony. The People's Republic of China should not be harassed; all countries that enforce justice should work hard, unite against hegemony and power politics and ensure a new, fair and appropriate world order.

literature

  • David M. Lampton: Same bed, different dreams: managing US-China relations 1989-2000. University of California Press, London 2001, ISBN 978-0-520-23462-8
  • Institute for Asian Studies at the University of Hamburg (ed.): CHINA aktuell Annual Index 1999 Volume 1. Hamburg 2000, ISSN  0341-6631
  • Rixta Wundrak: The origin and development of the Chinese migration to Eastern Europe and the experienced history of the migrants. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17247-7
  • Taryn Shepperd: Sino-US Relations and the Role of Emotion in State Action. Palgrave Macmillan UK 2013, ISBN 978-1-349-43743-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f American Diplomacy, Warts and All: Dealing with a PR Disaster - The US Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Huffington Post, February 17, 2016, accessed January 25, 2017 .
  2. ^ A b Thomas Pickering: 1999 Accidental Bombing. (No longer available online.) Embassy of the United States, Beijing, July 6, 1999, archived from the original on January 30, 2017 ; accessed on March 25, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn
  3. ↑ a b c d e Steven Lee Myers: Chinese Embassy Bombing: A Wide Net of Blame. New York Times, April 17, 2000, accessed January 27, 2017 .
  4. ↑ John Sweeney, Ed Vulliamy, Jens Holsoe: Nato bombed Chinese deliberately. The Observer, October 17, 1999, accessed January 28, 2017 .
  5. ↑ oA: Truth behind America's raid on Belgrade. The Observer, November 28, 1999, accessed January 28, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Chris Marsden: British newspaper reports: NATO deliberately bombed Chinese embassy in Belgrade. World Socialist Web Site, October 26, 1999, accessed January 28, 2017 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l David M. Lampton: Same bed, different dreams: managing US-China relations, 1989–2000 . Ed .: The Regents of the University of California. ISBN 978-0-520-23462-8 , pp. 59-61 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Kerry Dumbaugh: CHINESE EMBASSY BOMBING IN BELGRADE: COMPENSATION ISSUES. Congressional Research Service, April 12, 2000, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  9. ^ A b Terry McCarthy, Jaimie A. Florcruz: Collateral Damage. TIME, May 24, 1999, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  10. ^ NATO: Statement on the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by the North Atlantic Council. NATO, May 8, 1999, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  11. ↑ CNN SATURDAY 7:00 pm ET, May 8, 1999 - TV show "NATO Draws Fire From Accidental Bombing of Chinese Embassy; Russia Steps Up Criticism of NATO “Byline: Gene Randall, Brent Sadler, Matthew Chance, Steve Harrigan; viewed: 20.01.17
  12. ↑ David M. Lampton: Same bed, different dreams: managing US-China relations, 1989-2000; P.59: “It wasn't barbaric. What is barbaric is what Milosevic has done. It's tragic. It's awful. What is barbaric is the international 'ethnic cleansing' that he has provoked for a decade now. "
  13. ↑ a b c d Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Estonia: Strong Protest by the Chinese Government Against The Bombing by the US-led NATO of the Chinese Embassy in the Federal Yugoslavia. Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Estonia, May 17, 2004, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  14. ^ A b United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h Oskar Weggel : Destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO bombs . In: Institute for Asian Studies, University of Hamburg (Ed.): China Aktuell Annual Index 1999 . tape 1 , January 2000, ISSN  0341-6631 , p. 328-329 .
  16. ↑ a b NPR Weekend Edition Saturday 1:00 AM EST, 5/8/99 - Radio Show; Title: China's reaction to the bombing last night of their embassy in Belgrade; Host: Scott Simon; Reporter: Mary Kay Magistad; viewed: 20.01.17