On May 7, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (Operation Allied Force), five U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs hit the People's Republic of Chinaembassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists of state-owned media and outraging the Chinese public.[2] According to the U.S. government, the intention had been to bomb the nearby Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP). President Bill Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was an accident.[3][4][5]Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet testified before a congressional committee that the bombing was the only one in the campaign organized and directed by his agency,[6] and that the CIA had identified the wrong coordinates for a Yugoslav military target on the same street.[7] The Chinese government issued a statement on the day of the bombing, stating that it was a "barbarian act".[8]
In October 1999, five months after the bombing, The Observer[a] of London along with Politiken of Copenhagen, published the results of an investigation citing anonymous sources which said that the bombing had actually been deliberate as the embassy was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.[9][10] The governments of both the U.S. and the U.K. emphatically denied it was deliberate, with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calling the story "balderdash" and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook saying there was "not a single shred of evidence" to support it.[11] In April 2000, The New York Times published the results of its own investigation for which, "the investigation produced no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act."[12]
Right after the bombing, most Chinese believed it was deliberate, and many continue to believe that it was deliberate.[13] On the other hand, according to structured interviews conducted in 2002 of the 57% of Chinese relations experts who believed that the bombing was deliberate, 87.5% did not suspect President Clinton's involvement.[14]
In August 1999, the United States agreed to compensate the victims of the bombing and their families.[15] In December 1999, the United States agreed to pay China for the damage to the embassy, and China agreed to compensate the United States for damage to U.S. property that occurred during the resulting demonstrations in China.[16][17][18]
In May 2000, a major U.S.-China trade bill passed the United States House of Representatives which became the United States–China Relations Act of 2000[19] integrating with China's entry into the World Trade Organization.[20][21][22] By June 2000, during a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, both sides said that relations between them had improved.[23]
Sequence of events
Victims of the 1999 Chinese embassy in Belgrade bombing: (from left) Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying, and Shao Yunhuan
In the days before the bombing, an attack folder labelled "Belgrade Warehouse 1" was circulated for command approval. The folder originated within the CIA and described the target as a warehouse for a Yugoslav government agency suspected of arms proliferation activities. In this form, the strike was approved by President Clinton.[24]
It is unclear whether other NATO leaders approved the strike. A report by the French Ministry of Defense after the war said that "part of the military operations were conducted by the United States outside the strict framework of NATO"[25] and that a dual-track command structure existed. NATO had no authority to use any B-2 stealth bomber, which was used to carry out the strike.[25] That the United States was running missions outside of NATO's joint command structure was a source of some contention between the U.S. and other members of NATO, especially France.[26]
According to officials interviewed by The New York Times, the target was checked against a "no-strike" database of locations such as hospitals, churches, and embassies, but this raised no alarm as the embassy was listed at its old address. Officials said a similar list in the U.K. also had the same error.[27] However, the joint Observer/Politiken investigation reported that a NATO flight controller in Naples said that on this "don't hit" map, the Chinese embassy was listed at its correct location.[28] The investigation also reported that the coordinates of the Chinese embassy were correctly listed in a NATO computer.[29]
On the night of May 7–8, the strike was carried out by a single B-2 bomber with a crew of two[30] of the United States Air Force's 509th Bomb Wing flying directly out of Whiteman AFB, Missouri. The bomber was armed with JDAM GPS-guided precision bombs accurate to 13m (14yd). However, the geographic coordinates provided by the CIA and programmed into the bombs were those of the Chinese embassy 440m (480yd) away. At around midnight local time, five bombs landed at different points on the embassy complex. The embassy had taken precautionary measures in view of the ongoing bombing campaign, sending staff home and housing others in the basement,[31] but the attack still resulted in three fatalities: Shao Yunhuan (邵云环) who worked for the Xinhua News Agency, Xu Xinghu (许杏虎) and his wife Zhu Ying (朱颖) who worked for Guangming Daily, both Chinese state media, in addition to at least 20 people injured.[1] American officials said that some or all of the three who were killed were actually intelligence agents, but the Chinese denied the claim.[32][33][34]
Chinese reaction
On May 12, to mourn the deaths of the bombing victims, American flags were ordered to be lowered to half-staff at U.S. diplomatic missions in mainland China and Hong Kong. The photo above shows the lowered American flag at the American consulate in Hong Kong. "The lives of those killed and injured was secondary to the escalating tensions between the two powers," states a study of the diplomatic exchanges surrounding the affair. "U.S. officials to the families of the deceased were only incidental and, at best, pro-forma."An anti-American protest in Nanjing
The raid caused a dramatic rise in tension between China and the United States. An official statement on Chinese television denounced what it called a "barbaric attack and a gross violation of Chinese sovereignty".[37] China's ambassador to the UN described what he called "NATO's barbarian act" as "a gross violation of the United Nations charter, international law and the norms governing international relations" and "a violation of the Geneva convention".[38] On May 12, 1999, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong passed the "Condemnation of NATO" motion by a rare bipartisan vote of 54–0.[39]
Large demonstrations erupted at consular offices of the United States and other NATO countries in China in reaction to news of the bombing. On May 9, 1999, then-Vice PresidentHu Jintao delivered a national televised speech calling the act both "criminal" and "barbaric" and that it "has greatly infuriated the Chinese people."[40][41][42] He said the unauthorized demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang reflected the anger and patriotism of the Chinese people, and which the Chinese government fully supported, but urged against extreme and illegal conduct.[42][43][44]
On May 12, 1999, in his first public statement since the embassy bombing, Premier of ChinaZhu Rongji called NATO 'hypocrites' and stated that the "idea of safeguarding human rights and democracy, as well as opposing ethnic cleansing which they [NATO] are chanting loudly, is only a fig leaf." He also called on the United States and NATO "to make an open and official apology to the Chinese government and the Chinese people."[45]
The protests continued for several days, during which tens of thousands of rock-throwing protesters kept U.S. Ambassador James Sasser and other staff trapped in the Beijing embassy.[2][18] The residence of the U.S. Consul in Chengdu was damaged by fire and protestors tried to burn the consulate in Guangzhou. There were no reported injuries.[44]
President Clinton's apologies and those of the U.S. State Department were not initially broadcast by Chinese state-run media outlets. The demonstrations continued for four days before the Chinese government called a halt, eventually broadcasting President Clinton's apology on television and ordering the police to restrain the demonstrators.[46]
For a week, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyJiang Zemin declined phone calls from President Bill Clinton, eventually accepting a 30-minute apology call on May 14, in which Clinton expressed "regret" over the incident.[47][48] Jiang had chosen to leave U.S.-China leadership communications channels unused as he waited for the Politburo Standing Committee to reach a consensus.[49] The time it took for the Politburo to gather necessary information and reach a decision about China's responses motivated Party leadership to revisit a proposal to establish a centralized National Security Commission, although this was ultimately not implemented at the time.[50]
In the aftermath of the American bombing, the Chinese government ordered media outlets not to criticize the American president further and the Communist Party directed to the media to report on the United States in a less hostile manner.[51]:39 Generally, these limitations frustrated Chinese journalists.[51]:39
Settlement
By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In August, the U.S. government made a "voluntary humanitarian payment" of $4.5 million to the families of the three Chinese nationals who were killed and to those who were injured. On December 16, 1999, the two governments reached a settlement under which the United States agreed to pay $28 million in compensation for damage to the Chinese Embassy facility, and China agreed to pay $2.87 million in compensation for damage inflicted to the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic facilities in China.[18]
Technically, although the $4.5 million paid to the victims and their families came from Department of Defense discretionary funds, the $28 million for the damage to the embassy needed to be appropriated by the United States Congress;[52][53][54] China would receive $28m in compensation from the US for the bombing, but had to give back close to $3m for the damage to US diplomatic property in Beijing and elsewhere. The US paid another $4.5m to the families of the dead and injured.[55]
Official investigation and reporting in the aftermath
Late on May 8, U.S. Defense SecretaryWilliam Cohen and George Tenet issued a joint press release stating neither the aircrew involved nor the equipment were to blame for the incident.[56] The first attempt to explain the bombing came on May 10. William Cohen told reporters "In simple terms, one of our planes attacked the wrong target because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map".[57] The statement made no mention of the CIA. It was subsequently revealed that the CIA possessed maps showing the embassy.[56]
While U.S. officials then began, on the record, to deflect questions pending the outcome of further enquiries, they continued to brief journalists off the record. For example, also on May 10, Eric Schmitt published an account with most of the elements that were to feature in Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Tenet's later admissions. Schmitt reported that from the grainy aerial photographs that were used the two buildings looked very similar in terms of size, shape and height, and that the distance between them is about 200 yards (180m).[56]
Media criticism focused on the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) which made an announcement stating that "recent news reports regarding the accuracy of NIMA maps have been inaccurate or incomplete" and that "a hard-copy map is neither intended, nor used, as the sole source for target identification and approval."[58][59] CIA Director George Tenet later acknowledged that the map used should never have been used for aerial bombing target selection.[2]
According to the official account, CIA analysts knew the address of the Yugoimport office to be Bulevar Umetnosti 2 (2 Boulevard of the Arts). Using this information, they attempted to pinpoint its geographic location by using the known locations and addresses of other buildings on parallel streets as reference points. (The New York Times reported that some referred to what was done as "resection and intersection"[24][b] although Pickering did not use those terms in the statement.)[60]
Parallel lines were drawn from known addresses and locations on a parallel street. With this information it was attempted to reconstruct the pattern of street addresses on Bulevar Umetnosti, which was information unknown to the targeteers. The pattern of street addresses on Bulevar Umetnosti was not as expected, and the targeteer erroneously pinpointed the embassy "located on a small side street at some distance on Bulevar Umetnosti" from the intended target.[60]
Multiple checks designed to prevent attacks on sensitive targets each failed as the location of the embassy had not been updated since the embassy moved to New Belgrade three years earlier. As a result, the bombers took to the air with the coordinates of the Chinese embassy programmed into the bombs on board.[60]
Pickering said that they found no evidence that the embassy was being used to assist Serbian forces, and said that it is not conceivable that any rogue group within the U.S. would have done such a thing. He said that, "Science has taught us that a direct explanation, backed up by full knowledge of facts obtained through a careful investigation, is always preferable to speculation and far fetched, convoluted or contrived theories with little or no factual backing."[60]
George Tenet's statement
On July 22, George Tenet made a statement before a public hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.[7] Covering the same ground as Under Sec. Pickering's statement in China, he additionally acknowledged the target package originated within the CIA and that it was the sole CIA-directed strike of the war, stated that he had been personally unaware that the CIA was circulating strike requests and recognised that the CIA possessed maps correctly displaying the embassy. Deputy Defense SecretaryJohn Hamre, giving evidence the same day, stated that "NIMA is not at fault".[61]
Repercussions for CIA employees responsible
Tenet reprimanded six CIA officers and fired one as a result of the investigation.[62][63]
Chinese reaction
Few Chinese politicians believed the U.S. version of events, believing instead that the strike had been deliberate.[64]
Former Ambassador Li Daoyu stated "we don't say it was a decision of Clinton or the White House",[65] but the Chinese government describes the U.S. explanation for "the so-called mistaken bombing" as "anything but convincing" and has never accepted the U.S. version of events.[66]
The incident left a toxic legacy on China-NATO relations and kept them frozen for years.[67][68] In a 2011 meeting with U.S. officials in the aftermath of the 2011 NATO attack in Pakistan, Chinese general Ma Xiaotian directly referred to the embassy bombing by asking "Were you using the wrong maps again?"[67][68] Observers immediately noted the "cutting" nature of the remark, describing it as "jibing" and "priceless".[67][68]
The Observer/Politiken report
On October 17, 1999, The Observer[a] published an article by John Sweeney, Jens Holsoe and Ed Vulliamy stating that the bombing was deliberate.[9] On the same day, Copenhagen-based publication Politiken published a similar story in Danish saying that the bombing was deliberate, claiming the Chinese were helping the Yugoslavian forces who were engaged in ethnic cleansing and war crimes in Kosovo.[69]
On November 28, 1999, The Observer published a follow-up piece stating that the Americans bombed the embassy due to allegations that the Chinese were helping Željko Ražnatović, a Serbian mobster, paramilitary leader, and indicted war criminal.[70]
In the Politiken story, a source within the British Ministry of Defense is quoted as saying that the Chinese gave permission to the Yugoslavian army to use the embassy as a communications base. The British source stated the normal practice in this case would be to contact the Chinese and to ask them to stop the activity due to its violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and that they assumed that happened but did not have specific knowledge on it.[71]Politiken also reported that British sources surmised that the Chinese did not believe NATO would dare strike the embassy.[72]
The stories drew from anonymous sources, although in instances overall position in the hierarchy, role, and location was mentioned. One non-anonymous source was Dusan Janjic, an academic and advocate for ethnic reconciliation in Yugoslavia who testified that the military attaché at the embassy, Ren Baokai, openly spoke to him about how China was spying on the U.S.[73][74]
Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State at the time, called the story that the bombing was deliberate "balderdash", and Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary at the time, said, "I know not a single shred of evidence to support this rather wild story."[2][75] The Chinese ambassador to Yugoslavia at the time, Pan Zhanlin, denied in a book that the embassy was being used for rebroadcasting by Yugoslavian forces.[76]
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) posts on lack of U.S. media coverage
On October 22, 1999, media critique group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) posted on the lack of U.S. media coverage of The Observer/Politiken report and called on its supporters to contact major newspapers to ask why it was not being covered.[77]
Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times responded along with Douglas Stanglin of USA Today, and FAIR summarized the exchanges in a post on November 3, 1999.[78] Rosenthal agreed that coverage should not have referred to the bombing as accidental when this was disputed; however, he said that the stories were not well sourced by their standards. He said that reporters were assigned to look into the matter, but that they were not yet ready to publish (about six months later, in April 2000, they did publish the results of an investigation, and it found no evidence that the bombing was deliberate).[12] In the post, and in response to Rosenthal, FAIR listed the various anonymous sources in terms of general position in the command hierarchy, location, and role and said that if they had come forward publicly they could have been court martialed. FAIR also argued that the report is consistent with other information known about the bombing such as where the bombs hit the embassy,[79][80][81] and also pointed out that The Observer/Politiken report was more widely covered internationally than in the U.S.[82][83]
Salon interview with William M. Arkin
A 2000 Salon article by Laura Rozen featured an interview of Washington Post columnist and former intelligence officer William M. Arkin, who stated his belief that the bombing was accidental. Rozen reported that the Chinese embassy and the Hotel Yugoslavia are across the street from each other, and that in the Hotel Yugoslavia, Željko Ražnatović owned a casino and had a headquarters. Both the Hotel Yugoslavia and the Chinese embassy were bombed the same night of May 7.[84][85]
Arkin told Rozen his belief that certain people at NATO erroneously believed that signals coming from the Hotel Yugoslavia were actually coming from the Chinese embassy saying, "I think there were communications emanating from the Hotel Yugoslavia across the street. And I think that stupid people who are leaking rumors to The Observer have made that mistake."[84]
Wreckage of shot down F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter
The article from The Observer in October 1999 reported that a stealth fighter had been shot down early in the air campaign and that since China lacked stealth technology, they may have been glad to trade with the Yugoslav forces.[86]
In January 2011, the Associated Press via Fox News reported that the unveiled Chinese J-20 may have been developed in part by reverse engineering the U.S. F-117 from parts of the wreckage that were recovered.[87]
In May 2019, BBC News reported that, "It's widely assumed that China did get hold of pieces of the plane to study its technology."[88]
The Sunday Times report of an unpublished memoir by Jiang Zemin
In February 2011, The Sunday Times published an article stating that an unpublished memoir by former Chinese leaderJiang Zemin recounts how Serbian forces were allowed to use the Chinese embassy, and that privately, the U.S. showed evidence of this activity to the Chinese.[89]
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) investigation
A report conducted by the ICTY entitled "Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" after the Kosovo War examined the attack on the Chinese embassy specifically and came to the conclusion that the Office of the Prosecutor should not undertake an investigation concerning the bombing.[90] In reaching its decision, it provided the following observations:
That the root of the failures in target location appears to stem from the land navigation techniques employed by an intelligence officer in an effort to pinpoint the location of the FDSP building at Bulevar Umetnosti 2. The officer used techniques known as "intersection" and "resection" which, while appropriate to locate distant or inaccessible points or objects, are inappropriate for use in aerial targeting as they provide only an approximate location. Using this process, the individual mistakenly determined that the Chinese Embassy was the FDSP headquarters.[91]
The United States has formally apologized to the Chinese Government and agreed to pay $28 million in compensation to the Chinese Government and $4.5 million to the families of those killed or injured. The CIA has also dismissed one intelligence officer and reprimanded six senior managers. The U.S. Government also claims to have taken corrective actions in order to assign individual responsibility and to prevent mistakes such as this from occurring in the future.[92]
The aircrew involved in the attack should not be assigned any responsibility for the fact they were given the wrong target and that it is inappropriate to attempt to assign criminal responsibility for the incident to senior leaders because they were provided with wrong information by officials of another agency.[93]
Amnesty International report
Amnesty International examined the NATO air campaign and assessed the legality of its actions.[94] In the case of the embassy bombing, Amnesty reported both on the official explanation and to the Observer/Politiken investigation without arbitrating as to which was true. NATO was criticised for continuing its bombing campaign uninterrupted when its safeguards to protect civilians were known to be faulty. A genuinely accidental attack would not imply legal responsibility, but the report stated that "the very basic information needed to prevent this mistake was publicly and widely available at the time" and that, "It would appear that NATO failed to take the necessary precautions required by Article 57(2) of Protocol I."[95] Article 57(2) of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions says that an attacker shall, "do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects."[96]
During the visit of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi Jinping to Serbia in June 2016, he and Serbian PresidentTomislav Nikolić visited the location, declared the nearby turnaround a Square of Serbian-Chinese Friendship and announced the construction of the Chinese Cultural Center on the location of the former embassy.[2][100][101] The construction of the center began on July 20, 2017, in the presence of Mayor Siniša Mali and Chinese Ambassador Li Manchang. The center will have ten floors, two below ground and eight above, with a total floor area measuring 32,000m2 (340,000sqft). The project will cost 45 million euros.[102][103][2]
In 2020, the Milunović plaque was replaced by a new, "modest" square memorial. While the inscription on the original plaque explained why it had been placed there and included the date of the bombing and number of victims, the new one has a generic text in Serbian and Chinese: As a token of gratitude to PR China for support and friendship in hardest moments for the people of the Republic of Serbia, and in memory of the killed. This sparked objections by the Belgraders, who called the new memorial "a shame" and a "table which says nothing", asking for the reinstatement of the old plaque.[104]
In advance of a state visit to Serbia overlapping the 25th anniversary of the bombing, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote an article in the Serbian newspaper Politika in which he stated, "The friendship between China and Serbia which is soaked in blood that the two peoples spilled together has become a joint memory of the two peoples and will encourage both parties to make together huge steps forward."[105]
Rise of anti-Western sentiment and warming of China-Russia relations
1 2 Note that the story actually appears on The Guardian's website (www.theguardian.com). The Observer is published on Sundays and The Guardian is published daily and both are sister publications owned by Guardian Media Group.
↑ In activities such as surveying and inshore marine navigation intersection refers to finding one's current location by taking bearings from known locations. For example, while in a boat finding the bearing of a lighthouse, and other locations known on a map to find where one is on the water. Resection refers to finding the location of an unknown distant point by taking bearings to it from known locations. One bearing determines a line, and two bearings determine two lines which then intersect at a point. A third bearing can be taken which ought to intersect at or very close to where the first two lines intersect. See Position resection and intersection. However, generally speaking, these terms refer to the use of bearings rather than street addresses.
Related Research Articles
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) headquarters occurred on the evening of 23 April 1999, during Operation Allied Force. Sixteen employees of RTS were killed when a NATO missile hit the building.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo, and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The official NATO operation code name was Operation Allied Force whereas the United States called it Operation Noble Anvil ; in Yugoslavia the operation was incorrectly called Merciful Angel, possibly as a result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation.
The Grdelica train bombing occurred on 12 April 1999, when two missiles fired by a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bomber hit a passenger train while it was passing across a railway bridge over the South Morava river in the Grdelica gorge, some 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of Belgrade, Serbia. At least 20 civilian passengers were killed or declared missing. Estimates of the total death toll run as high as 60. It is considered the deadliest rail disaster in Serbian history.
Many human rights groups criticised civilian casualties resulting from military actions of NATO forces in Operation Allied Force. Both Serbs and Albanians were killed in 90 Human Rights Watch-confirmed incidents in which civilians died as a result of NATO bombing. It reported that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the NATO airstrikes. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, criticized NATO's decision to bomb civilian infrastructure in the war. "Once it made the decision to attack Yugoslavia, NATO should have done more to protect civilians," Roth remarked. "All too often, NATO targeting subjected the civilian population to unacceptable risks". Yugoslav government estimated that no fewer than 1,200 civilians and up to 2,500 civilians were killed and 5,000 wounded as a result of NATO airstrikes.
According to the 2012 U.S. Global Leadership Report, 26% of Montenegrins approve of U.S. leadership, with 48% disapproving and 26% uncertain.
Relations between Serbia and the United States were first established in 1882, when Serbia was a kingdom. From 1918 to 2006, the United States maintained relations with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), of which Serbia is considered shared (SFRY) or sole (FRY) legal successor.
The Battle of Košare was fought during the Kosovo War between the FR Yugoslav Forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the latter supported by the NATO air forces and Albanian Army. The battle was fought around Košare on the border between FR Yugoslavia and Albania from 9 April 1999 until 10 June 1999 during the NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia.
Israel and Serbia maintain diplomatic relations established between Israel and SFR Yugoslavia in 1948.
French-Serbian relations are foreign relations between France and Serbia. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 1839, between the Kingdom of France and the Principality of Serbia.
China and Serbia maintain diplomatic relations established between People's Republic of China and SFR Yugoslavia in 1955. In recent decades, the two countries have held a very close relationship raising it to the level of strategic partnership since 2009.
Italy–Serbia relations are diplomatic relations between Italy and Serbia. The Kingdom of Italy established formal bilateral relations with the Principality of Serbia on 18 January 1879. The strategic partnership between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Italy was established in Rome on 13 November 2009. Italy is one of the member states of the European Union which strongly support Accession of Serbia to the European Union. Both countries are members of the Central European Initiative, OSCE, Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization.
Portuguese-Serbian relations date back to 1882. Portugal has an embassy in Belgrade, and Serbia has an embassy in Lisbon. Despite support by Portugal for the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković was keen to improve bilateral cooperation. Also, Portugal is backing Serbia's accession to the European Union (EU).
Relations between Albania and Serbia have been complex and largely unfriendly due to a number of historical and political events.
Norwegian–Serbian relations are foreign relations between Norway and Serbia. Norway has an embassy in Belgrade. Serbia has an embassy in Oslo. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Iraq and Serbia maintain diplomatic relations established between Iraq and SFR Yugoslavia in 1958.
North Korea–Serbia relations are the bilateral relations between Serbia and North Korea. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had established diplomatic relations on October 30, 1948. Relations had been very close during the time of Josip Broz Tito and Kim Il Sung. Both leaders had taken a neutral stance during the Sino-Soviet split and maintained friendly relations with both the Soviet Union and China. Both Serbia and North Korea are members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was a part, was one of the movement's founding members. Both countries closed their embassies in each other's capitals in October and November 2001, respectively, for financial reasons. Nevertheless, they continue to enjoy a close relationship. The Serbian Embassy to North Korea is accredited from Beijing, China, and the North Korean embassy to Serbia is accredited from Bucharest, Romania.
United States–Yugoslavia relations were the historical foreign relations of the United States with both Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941) and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1992). During the existence of the SFRY, relations oscillated from mutual ignorance, antagonism to close cooperation, and significant direct American engagement. The United States was represented in Yugoslavia by its embassy in Belgrade and consulate general in Zagreb.
China–Yugoslavia relations were historical foreign relations between China and now split-up Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For a long period during the Cold War China was critical towards perceived excessive liberalism, too close cooperation with Western Bloc or market socialism of Yugoslavia, therefore the Chinese communists accused the Yugoslav communists of being revisionists, while the Yugoslav communists accused the Chinese communists of being dogmatics. But, the good relations between both socialist states were restored at the end of the 1960s, and improved even more since the Sino-Albanian rupture occurred, with the trend of improved relations continuing in relations with successor states, particularly Serbia. In the 1980s Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy resembled Yugoslavia's stance of being non-aligned and non-confrontational and with Hu Yaobang’s 1983 appraisal of ‘Josip Tito's principles of independence and equality among all communist parties, and of opposing imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonism’. All six former Yugoslav republics have memoranda of understanding with China on Belt and Road Initiative.
References
1 2 3 Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved October 12, 2021. In total, three people were killed and at least 20 injured.
↑ Dumbaugh, Kerry (April 12, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing in Belgrade: Compensation Issues". EveryCRSReport.com. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021. U.S. officials offered a number of apologies for the attack...May 10, 1999 – President Clinton, in opening remarks at a White House strategy meeting on children and violence, began with "I would like to say a word about the tragic bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. I have already expressed our apology and our condolences to President Jiang and to the Chinese people...."
↑ Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved October 12, 2021. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright decried the story as "balderdash", while British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said there was "not a single shred of evidence" to support it.
1 2 Steven Lee Myers (April 17, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing: A Wide Net of Blame". New York Times. New York. Retrieved October 18, 2021. While the investigation produced no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act, it provided a detailed account of a broader set of missteps than the United States or NATO have acknowledged...All of the officials interviewed by the Times said they knew of no evidence to support the assertion, and none has been produced.
That most Chinese believe that the bombing was deliberate was mentioned in the BBC News coverage at the twentieth anniversary of the bombing in May of 2019:
Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved October 12, 2021. But, as former Nato officials point out, in 20 years no clear evidence has come to light proving what almost all of China believes and America strenuously denies: that it was deliberate.
It was also mentioned in these two academic papers from 2010 and 2001:
Peter Hays Gries (July 2001). "Tears of Rage: Chinese Nationalist Reactions to the Belgrade Embassy Bombing". The China Journal (46). Canberra, Australia: Contemporary China Center, Australian National University: 25–43. doi:10.2307/3182306. ISSN1324-9347. JSTOR3182306. OCLC41170782. S2CID145482835. Few accepted America's explanation that the bombing (and subsequent death of three Chinese journalists) was a mistake caused by the CIA's use of outdated maps
↑ Perlez, Jane (June 23, 2000). "With Relations Warming, Albright Presses China on Taiwan". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved December 21, 2021. More than a year after the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, the United States and China officially declared today during a visit by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright that the interlude of bitterness had given way to an era of improved relations.
↑ Steven Lee Myers (April 17, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing: A Wide Net of Blame". New York Times. New York. Retrieved October 18, 2021. According to the officials interviewed by The Times, American commanders in Europe did maintain such a list of buildings, like hospitals, churches and embassies. The Chinese Embassy was on that list, officials said, but at its old address and was not removed. They said the embassy was also listed at the wrong address on a similar list in Britain.
↑ Vulliamy, Ed; Sweeney, John (October 17, 1999). "Nato bombed Chinese deliberately". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 15, 2021. A Nato flight control officer in Naples also confirmed to us that a map of 'non-targets': churches, hospitals and embassies, including the Chinese, did exist. On this 'don't hit' map, the Chinese embassy was correctly located at its current site, and not where it had been until 1996 - as claimed by the US and NATO.
↑ "Truth behind America's raid on Belgrade". The Observer. London. November 28, 1999. Retrieved October 18, 2021. In the immediate aftermath of the attack there were some among non-US staff who were suspicious. On 8 May they tapped into the Nato target computer and checked out the satellite co-ordinates for the Chinese Embassy. The co-ordinates were in the computer and they were correct. While the world was being told the CIA had used out-of-date maps, Nato's officers were looking at evidence that the CIA was bang on target.
↑ Vulliamy, Ed; Sweeney, John (October 17, 1999). "Nato bombed Chinese deliberately". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 15, 2021. Only three people died in the attack, two of whom were, reportedly, not journalists - the official Chinese version - but intelligence officers.
↑ Steven Lee Myers (April 17, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing: A Wide Net of Blame". New York Times. New York. Retrieved October 18, 2021. The officials said that after the bombing they did learn a great deal about the embassy's intelligence operations, including the background of the three Chinese journalists who were killed and who American officials say were in fact intelligence agents.
↑ Negash, Girma (2007). Apologia Politica: States and Their Apologies by Proxy (reprinted.). Westport, Connecticut: Lexington Books. p.116. ISBN978-0-7391-2206-8.
↑ Dumbaugh, Kerry (April 12, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing in Belgrade: Compensation Issues". EveryCRSReport.com. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021. President Clinton reportedly tried to place several phones calls to Chinese Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, but was rebuffed by Chinese officials. The President finally was able to speak with Jiang on May 14, 1999.
↑ Dumbaugh, Kerry (April 12, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing in Belgrade: Compensation Issues". EveryCRSReport.com. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021. Although the $4.5 million U.S. "voluntary humanitarian payment" of August 1999 was paid out of DoD discretionary funds, State Department officials maintain that the $28 million U.S. payment for property compensation is too large to be covered by such contingency accounts. Therefore, the property compensation agreement with China has to come from U.S. funds appropriated for that purpose.
↑ Laris, Michael (December 16, 1999). "U.S., China Reach Deal On Embassy Payments". Washington Post. ISSN0190-8286. Retrieved December 21, 2021. The delivery of the U.S. funds to the Chinese is contingent on congressional approval, but a U.S. official expressed confidence that the funds will be appropriated as part of the fiscal 2001 budget.
↑ Rosenthal, Elisabeth (December 16, 1999). "U.S. Agrees To Pay China $28 Million For Bombing". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved December 21, 2021. It was also not clear when the money promised under today's agreements will be paid. The $28 million promised by the United States requires congressional approval and will be part of the fiscal year 2001 budget request, embassy officials here said.
↑ Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved December 21, 2021. China would receive $28m in compensation from the US for the bombing, but had to give back close to $3m for the damage to US diplomatic property in Beijing and elsewhere. The US paid another $4.5m to the families of the dead and injured.
↑ Steven Lee Myers (April 17, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing: A Wide Net of Blame". New York Times. New York. Retrieved October 18, 2021. Last week, 11 months after the fact, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, dismissed a midlevel officer who put the X on what turned out to be the embassy. He also disciplined six other employees, saying that agency officers "at all levels of responsibility" contributed to the bombing.
↑ Peter Hays Gries (July 2001). "Tears of Rage: Chinese Nationalist Reactions to the Belgrade Embassy Bombing". The China Journal (46). Canberra, Australia: Contemporary China Center, Australian National University: 25–43. doi:10.2307/3182306. ISSN1324-9347. JSTOR3182306. OCLC41170782. S2CID145482835.
↑ Holsøe, Jens; Larsen, Jørgen; Leijonhufvud, Göran (October 17, 1999). "Kina hjalp Jugoslavien"[China helped Yugoslavia]. Politiken (in Danish). pp.1, 10. Under hele den 78 døgn lange bombekampagne, der startede 23, marts, var et af de vigtigste mål at ramme den jugoslaviske hærledelses kommunikationslinjer til hæren og politiet i Kosova, der gennemførte en etnisk udrensning, hvor op mod 800.000 etniske albanere blev fordrevet, og hvor over 10.000 blev dræbt. (article is available in the Politiken archive accessible with a subscription in image format, but not copyable text)
↑ "Truth behind America's raid on Belgrade". The Observer. London. November 27, 1999. Retrieved October 19, 2021. The true story - though it is being denied by everyone from Albright, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and CIA director George Tenet down - is that the Americans knew exactly what they are doing. The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was deliberately targeted by the most precise weapons in the US arsenal because it was being used by Zeljko Raznatovic, the indicted war criminal better known as Arkan, to transmit messages to his `Tigers' - Serb death squads - in Kosovo...that it was an operating base for Arkan, an indicted war criminal, was something that convinced the Americans to strike.'
↑ Holsøe, Jens; Larsen, Jørgen; Leijonhufvud, Göran (October 17, 1999). "Kina hjalp Jugoslavien"[China helped Yugoslavia]. Politiken (in Danish). pp.1, 10. Hans udsagn bekræftes af en kilde i det britiske forsvarsministerium..."Normal praksis i den slags tilfæde er, at man tager kontakt til kineserne og beder dem stoppe denne aktivitet, som er i strid med Wienerkonventionen om diplomatisk aktivitet. Jeg går ud fra, at det også skete her, men har ingen konkret viden om det..." (article is available in the Politiken archive accessible with a subscription in image format, but not copyable text)
↑ Holsøe, Jens; Larsen, Jørgen; Leijonhufvud, Göran (October 17, 1999). "Kina hjalp Jugoslavien"[China helped Yugoslavia]. Politiken (in Danish). pp.1, 10. Kineserne har, siger britiske kilder, sikkert regnet med, at NATO ikke ville vove at bombe ambassaden. (article is available in the Politiken archive accessible with a subscription in image format, but not copyable text)
↑ Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved October 12, 2021. On the day of the bombing, Dusan Janjic, an academic and advocate for ethnic reconciliation in Yugoslavia, was having lunch at an upscale restaurant in central Belgrade with a man he considered a good friend. Ren Baokai was the military attaché at the Chinese embassy and Janjic said he was surprisingly open with him about the fact that China was spying on Nato and US operations and tracking warplanes from its Belgrade outpost..
↑ Vulliamy, Ed; Holsoe, Jens; Vulliamy, Ed (October 17, 1999). "Nato bombed Chinese deliberately". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 15, 2021. The Chinese military attache, Ven Bo Koy, who was seriously wounded in the attack and is now in hospital in China, told Dusan Janjic, the respected president of Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade, only hours before the attack, that the embassy was monitoring incoming cruise missiles in order to develop counter-measures.
↑ Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved October 12, 2021. The Chinese ambassador who narrowly survived the strike, Pan Zhanlin, denied in a book that the embassy had been used for re-broadcasting and that China, in exchange, had been given parts of the US F-117 stealth fighter jet that Serbian forces had shot down in the early stages of the Nato campaign.
↑ "Chinese Embassy Bombing–Media Reply, FAIR Responds". FAIR. November 3, 1999. Retrieved October 20, 2021. The London Daily Telegraph (6/27/99) disclosed that NATO's precision-guided missiles struck only the embassy's intelligence-gathering section.
↑ "Truth behind America's raid on Belgrade". The Observer. London. November 27, 1999. Retrieved October 19, 2021. An intelligence expert told The Observer: If it was the wrong building, why did they use the most precise weapons on Earth to hit the right end of that `wrong building'?
↑ "U.S. Media Overlook Expose on Chinese Embassy Bombing". FAIR. October 22, 1999. Retrieved October 20, 2021. By contrast, the story appeared in England not only in the Observer and its sister paper, the Guardian (10/17/99), but also in...
1 2 Rozen, Laura (February 10, 2000). "A "Boneheaded" bombing". Salon. San Francisco. Archived from the original on April 19, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
↑ "Morning Briefing". NATO Press Office. May 8, 1999. Retrieved October 15, 2021. We also struck last night the Hotel Jugoslavia, which is a location being used as a barracks for Arkan's Tigers in Belgrade and as an alternate Headquarters for the MUP special police forces.
↑ Vulliamy, Ed; Holsoe, Jens; Vulliamy, Ed (October 17, 1999). "Nato bombed Chinese deliberately". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 15, 2021. Why the Chinese were prepared to help Milosevic is a more murky question. One possible explanation is that the Chinese lack Stealth technology, and the Yugoslavs, having shot down a Stealth fighter in the early days of the air campaign, were in a good position to trade.
↑ Ponniah, Kevin; Marinkovic, Lazara (May 7, 2019). "The night the US bombed a Chinese embassy". BBC News. Retrieved November 8, 2021. It's widely assumed that China did get hold of pieces of the plane to study its technology.
The article is available at no cost via the New Zealand paper The Press and is shown with PressReader. It is also available via ProQuest and with a subscription to The Times (The Times and The Sunday Times are sister papers).
Sheridan, Michael (February 14, 2011). "Former leader admits 'serious' mistake". The Press. Christchurch, New Zealand. Retrieved November 9, 2021– via PressReader.
↑ "Xi pays homage to Chinese martyrs killed in NATO bombing". Xinhua News Agency. June 18, 2016. Archived from the original on June 22, 2016. Retrieved November 9, 2021. Mayor of Belgrade Sinisa Mali announced that the street outside the center will be named after ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, and the square outside the center will be named "China-Serbia Friendship Square."
↑ Dumbaugh, Kerry (April 12, 2000). "Chinese Embassy Bombing in Belgrade: Compensation Issues". EveryCRSReport.com. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021. For months prior to the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Chinese officials and Chinese press accounts had been uniformly critical of NATO's and U.S. military involvement in Kosovo. On March 26, 1999, China joined Russia and Namibia in voting in favor of the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate halt to NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia.
Deng, Yong (April 28, 2008). China's Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International Relations. Cambridge University Press. p.143. ISBN978-1-139-47103-9. Retrieved November 1, 2021– via Google Books. Perhaps the most serious interest in a separate global grouping surfaced in the aftermath of the NATO air war against Yugoslavia and the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. For a brief period, China and Russia did step up military ties, but the drive for an exclusive alliance proved to be feeble and short-lived.
The book is also available at no cost after registration on Internet Archive:
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
NATO 
CIA 
