The Dalai lama often said that the present sufferings of the Tibetan people were due to a "black karma". When asked what was a black karma, he explained that like an individual, a nation commits during different cycles bad karma, evil actions - and that sooner or later, all those who have participated in these collective unholy acts, come back together, in the same place, at the same time, in the same country, to pay for their bad karma.Viewing the Kosovo problem from this angle, gives a totally different picture than the one portrayed by the West. For whatever can be said about the greatness of Islam - and there is no doubt that it fostered powerful civilisations and empires, whose refinements and achievements were unsurpassed in their days - the religion of Mohammed remains, even today, a militant and violent creed, which does not tolerate other religions and views all others as "kafirs", infidels. Hence the bloody jihads Muslims are still leading all over the world, even as the 21st century draws near : in Kosovo, of course, but also in Algeria or in Kashmir. The atrocities committed over the centuries by the Arabs and Muslim armies in what is known today as Yugoslavia, are numerous and well documented. There is actually, an interesting parallel to do with India, where Hindus, like the Serbs, resisted the Muslims invaders, in spite of the forced attempts at conversion, the rapes, the millions of people taken in slavery, the killing of men by the thousands. In the same way, during the second world war, many of the Muslim Croats and Albanians ganged up with the Nazis and killed thousands of innocent Serbs, many of whom had enrolled in the underground against the dark
forces which Germany was then incarnating (how strange that fifty years later, a people who killed six million Jews, because they thought they were ‘impure’, can play such an important role in Nato. On top of that, very few know that the Germans, still thirsty for domination in Europe, partly triggered the Yugoslav conflict, by being the first to recognise Croatia, where there are many Germans and which sided with nazi Germany. How short a memory Europe has !!!).

No doubt, Milosevic is a manipulating and bloodthirsty leader, who went in for  ethnic cleansing to solve the Kosovo problem; no doubt the Serbs have committed many atrocities in Kosovo, while Nato was bombing them out of their minds; no doubt the plight of the Kosovo refugees was sad (but it was highly publicised by the western media and used by Nato as a propaganda tool to justify the terrible bombing of the innocent Yugoslavians - and there are much more needy refugees in the world - about whom the US does not give a damn. ..) But from a Buddhist point of view, were not the Kosovars (and earlier the Croats) paying for the long, bloody and terrible karma they exerted on Yugoslavia for hundreds of years ? Or to put it in a more cartesian and down to earth mould, were not the Muslims getting back a fraction of what they had done to the Serbs ?

Does the US think now it is the Moral Inquisitor of the world ? Is it going tomorrow to bomb other nations with whom  it disagrees with ? Send its goons to snuff out any President it dislikes, even if it is democratically elected like Milosevic ? What an hypocrisy ! The US has supported much more bloody dictators all over the world, men like Pinochet, Mobutu, Duvallier, who have killed many more people than Milosevic did ! What right does the US have to put a reward on Milosevic’s head ?  Do the Americans still think we are in the Far West time, when guns were the only form of dialogue cow boys knew about ? (and indeed, Clinton should today realise that if American school boys go on more and more shooting rampages against the classmates they dislike, it is because they see the US Government doing exactly the same thing on a much larger scale).
The truth is that this Kosovo war was a MENTAL war - at no point did the West listen to its heart or even try to use simple logic before embarking upon such reckless action. Instead, it relied on clichés and past thinking moulds : Milosevic was Hitler, the Serbs were nazis, and the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was similar to the one on the Jews. But there is ABSOLUTELY no comparison, as the Holocaust perpetuated against the Jews by the Germans is unparalleled in History (bar the one done on the Hindus by the Muslims). And the Left intellectual elite in Europe will have to bear a great responsibility in provoking this "moral" war, because they
were the ones who tilted the balance in favour of an all out military conflict and used all the wrong comparisons between the Serbs and the nazis, thus pushing the politicians and the media. In France, for instance, where in the beginning some of the Right wing media and politicians had a little reserve about this war, men like leftist philosopher Bernard Henry Levy turned the situation around, thanks to some heavy (and ridiculously weak) articles in Left-leaning newspaper Le Monde.
What the US and Otan have done in Yugoslavia is morally WRONG : it is thus BAD KARMA for Europe to bear. And one day - if the Dalai lama’s theory about black karma is right - they will have to pay for it. For what was the point of Charles Martel stopping the Arabs in 732 and Michel Obrnovic II defeating the kalifat, if today the West hands over on a gold platter a fully autonomous (and sooner or later fully independent - whatever hypocrite noises the Otan makes about it) nation to the Muslims in Europe ? And make no mistake about it :  one of the great traits of Islam - and also its biggest drawback - is that a Muslim is a Muslim, wherever he is, whatever the colour of his skin (that is, he helps his kindred brothers and sisters - contrary to the Hindus, who have not yet learnt a little bit of Christian charity).
The Kosovar Muslims might look reassuring and harmless to the eyes of the Otan (whom, if you noticed, never once pronounced the word ‘muslim’ during their war - it’s a bit like Indian newspapers saying ‘one community attacked another community’, when Muslims go on rampage against Hindus), even if it is beginning to show its true face, witness the recent massacre of Serb civilians. But if you scratch a little bit and give them some time, you will quickly realise that like any Muslims, they consider all other religions as "infidel" and that the jihad is still a sacred concept to them. Already, one can see that Saudi Arabia, which the United States considers as a ‘soft’ Muslim nation, but which actually sponsors international terrorism, is one of the biggest backers of the Kosovar people; already you can see the ruthlessness and ultimate motives of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has been armed by the
western powers. Is the West mad then, that it has the never heard about the snake that bites the hand which feeds him ? The Kosovo quagmire and its disastrous consequences will take decades to solve.
Maybe Mr Xavier Solana, before embarking upon his ‘holy’ war on a traditionally pro-western, Christian, reasonably democratic nation, destroying bridges, factories, killing innocent beings, should have read the book of Samuel Huntington "The clash of civilisations". He would have seen that Hutington had correctly predicted that in the 21st century there will be a clash between two civilisations : the West and Islam (with China sometimes siding with Islam for self interest purposes). This trend had already started in India, also a pro-western, highly democratic power, which is now battling in Kashmir the fundamentalist side of Islam,
as incarnated by Pakistan, which in turn is helped by the Chinese, who gave it its nuclear bomb and ballistic missiles to carry it. By allowing an independent Kosovo, the West has made sure that the enemy is now in the heart of Europe.

CONSEQUENCES OF KOSOVO -- VIEWS FROM EAST ASIA (US Informatiuon Agency, July 9, 1999)
Views from East Asia on Operation Allied Force's campaign against Yugoslavia reflected the diversity of countries resident in the
region. While no country was without its critics of the U.S.-led NATO action, overall support was most evident on the editorial pages
of dailies in Australia and New Zealand, and waned somewhat as one moved toward the north and west, reaching a hostile nadir in
China's official media and pro-PRC papers in Hong Kong.

In Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, sympathy for the plight of the Kosovo Albanians ran high, leading analysts to assert that
the "brutal" Yugoslav president must be "held accountable" and that NATO action represented the "best hope" for Kosovo. That said,
however, writers in both countries tempered their enthusiasm with worries that, in taking NATO "beyond the mandate given to it by
the UN," the U.S. had set a worrisome precedent for the future. Manila's lively press likewise offered mixed views, with some liberal
outlets exuding praise for the U.S. as "the only country that still fights for the right reasons," while others expressed doubts about
the U.S.' "altruism" and contended that U.S. weapons manufacturers stood to gain much from the Kosovo conflict.

In Japan, observers viewed NATO's "cause" as "noble," but emphasized that the U.S. had suffered "heavy diplomatic losses"--not
only with China and Russia, but with its European Allies as well--as a result of the Kosovo conflict. Opinion from South Korea and
Thailand echoed the themes expressed in the Japanese press, but with an increased dose of concern for the "dominance" of the
U.S. in the international arena and the "subversion" of the role of the UN. "That the UN Charter was violated by 19 key democracies
should serve as a warning to all," stressed an independent Thai daily.

Dailies in Singapore voiced unflinchingly firm support for NATO's "mercy mission to save a people from extinction," but also felt
compelled to come to grips with "a world gone amok" in the face of what was seen as a "global leadership vacuum." In contrast with
the media's views in many of its neighbors, pundits in Singapore saw the U.S. not so much as controlling world events as
"abdicating its global leadership role in pursuit of domestic imperatives." This "leadership vacuum," these writers argued, "has made
regional powers, secure in the knowledge that the U.S. is distracted by domestic concerns, less averse to taking risks."

A predominant concern throughout the region was the "setback" dealt to U.S.-China relations in the aftermath of NATO's mistaken
bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade May 7. That event, followed shortly by the release of the Cox report outlining charges
of Chinese nuclear espionage against the U.S., unleashed a torrent of condemnatory rhetoric from official media outlets in Beijing
and from sympathetic pro-PRC dailies in Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam and North Korea. For many writers in the region, the China
angle of the Kosovo story took precedence over the conflict itself, leading many to conclude that East Asia, and possibly the world,
was less "secure" as a result of these "complications," which were viewed as "undermining" the "already fragile Sino-U.S.
relationship."

Following are analyses of the commentary along six themes:

1. American power and influence: Virtually from day one of the NATO campaign, Beijing's official media levied charges that the
"U.S.-led NATO" was waging a war of "evil hegemonism" against Yugoslavia under the "guise" of freedom and human rights in order
to realize the "American dream of supremacy over the world." Not surprisingly, rhetoric of this type intensified following the bombing
of the Chinese Embassy, and began to appear even in some--but not all--centrist and independent Hong Kong papers. Resentment
of the U.S. superpower's alleged ability to "do as it pleases" on the world stage was also evident, albeit to a lesser degree, on the
opinion pages of dailies in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and a few in South Korea. Writers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand
and some in South Korea, on the other hand, voiced a degree of admiration for the superpower's ability to "maintain NATO's
solidarity" and bring a "brutal dictator" to heel.

2. Intervention: A generalized concern about possible future "out-of-area" operations on the part of NATO emanated from media
organs in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and South Korea. Editorial writers in these countries wondered which countries "might
be next" in a world where the U.S. and NATO could use the "unchecked logic of power" to achieve their goals. Some media voices in
China were convinced that NATO might well apply the Kosovo "intervention" model to Tibet or China's restive Xinjiang province.

3. Ethnic conflict: Commentary on this theme was evident only in a few official Chinese dailies, where observers aired suspicions
that NATO or the U.S. might seeks to "meddle" in China's "internal affairs" by stirring up a "Pandora's box" of ethnic conflicts in
places such as Tibet.

4. Military strategy: In a region where the U.S. has a number of important defense relationships and where regional security is of
paramount strategic importance, overt commentary on this theme was strikingly absent. In Japan, muted references were made to
the "need" to "rebuild regional stability" following the suspension of the NATO air strikes, but little concrete advice was proffered on
the issue. In China and Hong Kong, on the other hand, there were veiled references to the need to maintain the nation's "strength" in
the face of U.S. "hegemony," with a pro-PRC Hong Kong writer calling for the building of a "new Great Wall" to "restrain strong
powers," such as the U.S. and NATO, "who are blinded in their lust for gain."

5. The UN: Reflecting opinion in other regions of the world, commentators in nearly all countries were worried about the "sidelining"
of the UN as an arbiter of international conflict and feared that the U.S. "has determined that it is above and beyond international
law."

6. Impact on U.S. alliances: No overt discussion of U.S. alliances surfaced in the region, although writers voiced concern about the
possible formation of a new "China-led" nuclear bloc, which might include Russia, Iran and Pakistan in response to NATO's
"aggression" in Kosovo. South Korean dailies judged that such an alliance would have a "destructive ripple effect" on the
international order. "If China chooses to cultivate closer relationships with Russia, Pakistan and Iran in its attempts to counter the
U.S., the world is in deep trouble," deemed a conservative Seoul outlet.

This survey is based on previously published reports, March 24 to present.
EDITOR: Kathleen J. Brahney
For more information, please contact: U.S. Information Agency,Office of Public Liaison,Telephone: (202) 619-4355, 7/9/99 

La Chine pourrait tenter de modifier le texte de la résolution
NATIONS UNIES, 9 juin, Reuters - La Chine pourrait demander des amendements au projet de résolution sur le Kosovo soumis au Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies par le G8, mais des diplomates occidentaux ont dit mercredi qu'ils rejeteraient ces modifications. Les 15 membres du Conseil de sécurité, au sein duquel la Chine détient un droit de véto, attendent un accord militaire entre l'Otan et la Yougoslavie, en cours de négociation en Macédoine, portant sur le retrait des forces serbes du Kosovo et l'arrêt des bombardements de l'Otan. La Russie et la Chine ont réclamé que les bombardements de l'Otan en Yougoslavie, qui ont débuté le 24 mars, soient arrêtés avant tout vote au Conseil de sécurité. "Un accord militaire entraînera 14 avis favorables à la résolution", a déclaré l'ambassadeur britannique, Jeremy Greenstock, à des journalistes. Mais l'incertitude plane sur le vote de la Chine, bien que la plupart des ambassadeurs pensent qu'elle s'abstiendra plutôt que de recourir à son droit de veto. Les 15 membres du Conseil de sécurité devraient examiner les huit pages du projet de résolution en fin d'après-midi (NDLR: fin de soirée en heure GMT) et c'est alors que le représentant chinois pourrait soumettre des amendements. La Chine a formulé des objections à ce que la résolution invoque le chapître 7 de la Charte des Nations unies, qui autorise le recours à la force, et elle est hostile à des références au Tribunal pénal international, qui a inculpé le président yougoslave Slobodan Milosevic de crimes de guerre. A Cologne, où il participe à des discussions avec ses homologues du G8, le secrétaire au Foreign Office, Robin Cook, a déclaré que les généraux yougoslaves et de l'Otan pourraient se mettre d'accord avant la fin de la journée sur un retrait des forces serbes du Kosovo, ce qui permettrait à l'Otan de cesser ses bombardements d'ici quelques heures. Dès que l'Otan verra les camions serbes se replier et ordonnera l'arrêt des raids aériens, la résolution pourra être adoptée "en cinq minutes" à l'Onu, a-t-il prédit. Il a également dit que les forces de l'Otan massées en Albanie et en Macédoine, c'est à dire au sud du Kosovo, n'y pénétreraient pas au premier jour du retrait serbe, car les premiers replis yougoslaves s'effectueront au nord. Cependant, dès que les Serbes quitteront les régions sud, l'Otan se déploiera dans la province.

USA-RFY-Chine-Kosovo :La Chine impatiente envers l'enquête sur le bombardement de son ambassade
   PEKIN, 20 mai (AFP) - Pékin a donné jeudi des signes d'impatience à l'égard de l'enquête promise par les Etats-Unis sur le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, à l'origine de manifestations violentes dans tout le pays.  "Plus de 10 jours se sont écoulés (depuis le bombardement). Les conclusions de l'enquête doivent être rendues publiques le plus vite
possible afin de satisfaire toutes les exigences du gouvernement et du peuple chinois", a déclaré le porte-parole du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Zhu Bangzao.   Au cours d'un point de presse, M. Zhu a appelé les Etats-Unis à "fournir des réponses concrètes au peuple chinois, qui autrement ne sera pas satisfait".   Le plus "urgent" doit être de mener à bien l'enquête exhaustive
promise par le président américain Bill Clinton, lors d'un coup de téléphone à son homologue chinois Jiang Zemin une semaine après le bombardement du 7 mai au cours duquel trois journalistes chinois ont trouvé la mort.   "Le président Clinton a promis de découvrir la cause de cet événement et de dire la vérité au peuple chinois", a ajouté M. Zhu, tout en répétant que le régime communiste se réservait le droit de prendre "des mesures supplémentaires" si les explications n'étaient pas satisfaisantes.
   A la suite de la destruction de son ambassade par des missiles de l'OTAN, la Chine a suspendu sa coopération avec les Etats-Unis dans les domaines militaires, de la non-prolifération et des droits de l'homme.    Pékin a également exigé des excuses officielles des Etats-Unis, une enquête sur les causes de la frappe aérienne et des "sanctions sévères" pour les responsables.

Le Portugal présente ses excuses formelles à Pékin pour son ambassade
   PEKIN, 20 mai (AFP) - Le président portugais a offert jeudi des excuses formelles à la Chine pour le récent bombardement de son
ambassade à Belgrade par l'Otan, a rapporté l'agence Chine nouvelle.   Les excuses ont été transmises par le chef de la diplomatie
portugaise Jaime Gama au cours d'un entretien avec le président chinois Jiang Zemin, a précisé l'agence. Elle a ajouté que le président portugais avait souligné la nécessité d'une enquête approfondie sur le bombardement dont les résultats seront transmis à la Chine.   Le bombardement "par erreur", selon la version de l'Otan, de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade le 7 mai dernier, avait fait trois morts et 20 blessés et suscité une vague de manifestations anti-Otan à travers la Chine.   Au cours de leur entretien, M. Gama et le président chinois ont également souligné l'importance qu'ils accordent au développement des relations bilatérales entre les deux pays ainsi qu'à la rétrocession réussie de l'enclave portugaise de Macao à la Chine en décembre prochain.   "Dans sept mois, la Chine rétablira sa souveraineté sur Macao et réglera les affaires de Macao strictement en accord avec la loi fondamentale de Macao" a déclaré M. Jiang Zemin, cité par l'agence Chine Nouvelle.   La Chine a accepté que la formule "un pays, deux systèmes", déjà en vigueur à Hong Kong, soit également appliquée à Macao après la rétrocession qui interviendra le 20 décembre.   Lors de son entretien avec M. Gama, le président chinois a par ailleurs fait allusion à une visite qu'il doit effectuer au Portugal, en espérant que celle-ci contribuerait au développement des relations bilatérales. Cette visite pourrait, a-t-on appris de source diplomatique, avoir lieu à l'automne, dans le cadre d'une tournée européenne qui devrait également conduire M. Jiang Zemin enGrande-Bretagne.

 Le bombardement de Belgrade donne lieu à un raidissement politique à Pékin
     PEKIN, 17 mai (AFP) - Le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade donne lieu à un raidissement politique à Pékin, où les autorités tentent de rester en phase avec le ressentiment populaire contre l'OTAN, tout en maintenant le cap sur l'ouverture et les réformes.   Alors que les manifestations devant l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Pékin ont pris fin mardi dernier, des millions de Chinois doivent depuis participer, au sein de leur université ou de leur entreprise, à des "réunions" pour "étudier" les dernières déclarations des autorités.   "Les cadres et les masses de toutes les provinces continuent à étudier le discours du président Jiang Zemin", titre lundi le Quotidien de Pékin.   Le numéro un chinois, tout en dénonçant les ambitions "hégémoniques" des Etats-Unis et en apportant son soutien aux "justes actions" des manifestants contre "l'atrocité perpétrée par l'OTAN", a appelé jeudi
ses compatriotes à se remettre au travail. Il a également plaidé pour la poursuite de la coopération avec le reste du monde au nom du développement économique.   Le discours, prononcé dans le cadre solennel du Palais du Peuple, a été salué par la direction communiste au grand complet, écoutant debout "L'Internationale".   Depuis, la "ligne" a été imposée dans tout le pays par les différents échelons du Parti communiste chinois (PCC) lors de réunions réminiscentes de la "Révolution culturelle" où chacun lève le poing en criant "A bas l'impérialisme américain".   La télévision nationale a longuement diffusé les commentaires des "forces vives du pays" approuvant sans réserve le point de vue présidentiel. Même les ouvriers occupés à la réfection de la place
Tiananmen, au coeur de Pékin, ont été montrés en pleine lecture du discours de M. Jiang.   Parallèlement, la langue de bois fait un retour en force. L'OTAN est forcément "sous direction américaine", la destruction de l'ambassade systématiquement "barbare" et ses trois victimes "des martyrs" à "donner en exemple à la jeunesse".   "Les autorités tentent de canaliser la réaction populaire en maintenant les étudiants sur les campus, plutôt que de les laisser jeter des pierres contre l'ambassade des Etats-Unis", commente un diplomate asiatique, qui souligne que les autorités craignent d'être débordées en cas de manifestation.   Le bombardement de Belgrade s'est produit un mois avant le 10ème anniversaire de la répression des manifestations de Tiananmen en faveur
de la démocratie, et deux semaines après le rassemblement silencieux de 10.000 adeptes d'une secte devant le siège du régime chinois, qui a pris le régime au dépourvu.   Les médias diffusent largement la nécessité de maintenir le calme."En tant qu'étudiants, nous ne pouvons faire grand chose d'autre qu'étudier d'arrache-pied, afin de préparer l'avenir", déclare le dirigeant d'un "syndicat" étudiant au journal China Daily. "Nous allons nous efforcer de contribuer à la stabilité de la société afin de réduire au minimum les effets (du bombardement) sur notre pays".   Pour Jean-Pierre Cabestan, directeur du Centre d'études français sur la Chine contemporaine à Hong Kong, "les autorités ont utilisé le bombardement de Belgrade pour remettre à l'honneur un discours
nationaliste qui sert de ciment face à l'adversité". "A un mois de l'anniversaire de Tiananmen, il était difficile de résister à la
tentation", estime-t-il.   Mais le pouvoir ne peut empêcher "que se poursuive en toile de fond la perte de contrôle progressive de l'Etat et du parti sur la société chinoise", ajoute M. Cabestan.   De l'avis des experts, le raidissement pourrait se prolonger au moins
jusqu'à l'anniversaire de la répression de Tiananmen, le 4 juin, voire jusqu'aux célébrations du cinquantième anniversaire du régime, le 1er octobre.   "A plus long terme, le pragmatisme l'emportera. La Chine ne prendra pas le risque d'une rupture avec les Occidentaux si cela va à l'encontre de ses intérêts", prévoit le diplomate.
Des cartes périmées de la CIA à l'origine de l'erreur de l'ambassade (AFP, 10/5/99)
WASHINGTON, 10 mai (AFP) - Le bombardement par l'OTAN de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade résulte de l'utilisation de cartes périmées fournies par la CIA, qui n'indiquaient pas que l'ambassade avait changé d'adresse il y a plusieurs années, a indiqué dimanche la chaîne d'information en continu CNN.Le directeur de Centrale américaine de renseignement, George Tenet et
le secrétaire américain à la Défense William Cohen, ont imputé l'erreur à des renseignements incomplets, plutôt qu'à l'erreur d'un pilote ou à un problème technique, mais n'ont pas mis en cause nommément la CIA, dans un communiqué commun publié dimanche plus tôt dans la journée. "Clairement, une information erronée a engendré une erreur dans le ciblage initial du bâtiment. Ensuite, les longues procédures mises en place pour sélectionner et valider les cibles n'ont pas corrigé l'erreur initiale", ont indiqué les deux responsables américains."Une enquête sur nos procédures nous a convaincu que ce fut une anomalie qui ne se reproduira probablement pas. Par conséquent, les autorités de l'OTAN ont l'intention de continuer et d'intensifier leur
campagne aérienne", selon les termes du communiqué. CNN, qui ne cite aucune source, soutient que les cartes de Belgrade
fournies par la CIA, qui étaient apparemment utilisées par l'OTAN pour sélectionner les cibles de leurs frappes, n'indiquaient pas que l'ambassade de Chine avait changé d'adresse quatre ans plus tôt. Le New York Times, dans son édition de dimanche, citant des sources non identifiées à l'OTAN, a précisé qu'une enquête était en cours sur l'éventualité que la CIA ait sélectionné ses cibles sur une carte périmée.L'OTAN et les responsables américains ont insisté sur le fait que les bombardements continueraient en Yougoslavie, malgré des manifestations de masse en Chine qui empêchent les membres de l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Pékin de quitter les locaux de la représentation diplomatique.

réactions en Asie :

Des étudiants chinois manifestent à Tokyo contre l'Otan
TOKYO, 10 mai (AFP) - Une centaine d'étudiants chinois ont manifesté lundi, pour le deuxième jour consécutif, devant l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Tokyo pour protester contre le bombardement par l'Otan de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, a constaté l'AFP.   Les manifestants ont brandi un grand drapeau chinois et des pancartes contre les bombardements aériens et l"impérialisme américain". Une trentaine de policiers armés de matraques étaient positionnés à proximité des protestataires, qui se sont dispersés dans le calme en milieu d'après-midi (heure locale). Yyan Feng, 26 ans, étudiant l'économie à l'université Rissho de Tokyo, s'est déclaré "scandalisé" par le bombardement de l'ambassade chinoise. "Je ne suis pas satisfait par les excuses de (Bill) Clinton.Cette affaire ne pourra pas être close par des excuses", a-t-il déclaré.   Les étudiants ont indiqué qu'ils avaient remis une lettre de protestation à l'ambassade.   Plusieurs manifestations ont rassemblé des dizaines de milliers de manifestants à Pékin et dans d'autres grandes villes asiatiques après le bombardement par erreur de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi.

L'OTAN tente d'apaiser la colère des Chinois et de Moscou
   BRUXELLES/PEKIN, 9 mai (AFP) - L'OTAN et les Occidentaux ont tenté de calmer le jeu après le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, en multipliant durant le week-end regrets et explications dans l'espoir d'apaiser la colère de Pékin et Moscou.  Les manifestations anti-américaines se sont multipliées en Chine. L'ambassadeur des Etats-Unis en Chine, James Sasser, a déclaré dimanche à la télévision CBS que le personnel de la mission diplomatique à Pékin ainsi que sa propre famille étaient en situation d'"otages" dans l'ambassade "assiégée". Le bombardement par l'OTAN de l'ambassade de Chine dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi, qui a fait quatre morts et 20 blessés selon Pékin, est dû à une "information erronée" des services de renseignement, a expliqué le porte-parole de l'OTAN, Jamie Shea. Selon une déclaration commune du secrétaire américain à la Défense William Cohen et du chef de la CIA George Tenet, "il ne s'agit ni d'une erreur de pilote, ni d'une erreur mécanique". "Une information erronée a engendré une erreur dans le ciblage initial du bâtiment", ont-ils expliqué. Les dirigeants occidentaux ont déploré ce bombardement, que le président américain Bill Clinton a qualifié de "tragique erreur". Il a présenté ses "regrets sincères" et ses "profondes condoléances" au peuple et aux dirigeants chinois. L'OTAN a cependant refusé de désigner des responsables, affirmant avoir "assumé" "en expliquant qu'il y avait eu une erreur" et "en prenant des mesures pour réduire la possibilité que cela se reproduise", selon M. Shea. En dépit de ces explications, des manifestations qui ont rassemblé
plus de 200.000 personnes se sont déroulées en Chine, pour la deuxième journée consécutive. Le vice-président chinois Hu Jintao a confirmé le "soutien" du pouvoir aux manifestations "légales" contre l'OTAN, mais il a tenté de calmer la tension grandissante à l'intérieur du pays. Il a demandé à ses compatriotes "d'empêcher certaines personnes d'utiliser cette occasion pour perturber l'ordre social". A Pékin, un défilé rassemblant 100.000 personnes s'est déroulé devant les ambassades de Grande-Bretagne et des Etats-Unis, tenus pour principaux responsables du bombardement. Cette manifestation, de loin la plus importante en Chine depuis le "Printemps de Pékin" en 1989, s'est déroulée sous la surveillance de milliers de policiers. "L'ambassade est assiégée (...) Cela ne fait aucun doute que nous sommes des otages (...) dans l'ambassade. Ma famille est otage dans la résidence", a déclaré l'ambassadeur des Etats-Unis James Sasser à la chaîne de télévision américaine CBS. Il a implicitement accusé les
autorités chinoises de laisser faire les manifestants. Selon l'agence officielle Chine Nouvelle, 50.000 personnes ont aussi
manifesté à Xian (nord), 30.000 à Hangzhou (est), plusieurs milliers à Xiamen (sud-est) et quelque 10.000 étudiants devant le consulat américain de Shanghaï. Par mesure de sécurité, l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Pékin et les consulats américains dans les grandes villes chinoises seront fermés lundi et mardi.

Au moins 200.000 manifestants anti-OTAN à travers la Chine par Elisabeth ZINGG, PEKIN, 9 mai (AFP) -
Pendant des heures, les manifestants ont défilé de manière organisée dans les principales villes de Chine, scandant des slogans à très forte tonalité nationaliste, allant jusqu'à exiger la guerre avec les Etats-Unis.   "Go to war" ("Déclarons la guerre") proclamaient en anglais plusieurs banderoles portées par des manifestants à Pékin, où près de 100.000 personnes, en grande majorité des jeunes, ont défilé tout au long de la journée devant les ambassades des Etats-Unis et de Grande Bretagne.
   Les deux pays sont tenus pour directement responsables du bombardement par un avion de l'OTAN de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade qui a fait quatre morts, dont deux journalistes, et 20 blessés dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi. L'OTAN a assuré que ce bombardement était dû à "une information erronée".    L'ambassadeur des Etats-Unis, James Sasser, a déclaré que le
personnel de l'enceinte diplomatique ainsi que sa propre famille étaient en situation d'"otages" et que l'ambassade était "assiégée".   Interrogé sur la chaîne de télévision américaine CBS, l'ambassadeur a implicitement accusé les autorités chinoises de laisser faire les manifestants. Il y a des "indices qui laissent à penser que le gouvernement pourrait encourager cela", a déclaré M. Sasser.   Les manifestants "continuent de nous jeter des pierres. Cela fait 48 heures que cela dure", a-t-il ajouté.
   Selon lui, un Marine a pu éteindre à l'aide d'un extincteur un début d'incendie après qu'un cocktail Molotov fut tombé dans la résidence.    M. Sasser a précisé qu'il s'était entretenu au téléphone de la situation avec le secrétaire d'Etat Madeleine Albright.
   Dans une déclaration solennelle à la télévision, le vice-président chinois Hu Jintao a indiqué que la Chine soutenait "toutes les activités de protestation légales contre l'attaque de l'OTAN", mais a également appelé la population au calme en insistant sur le respect "de la stabilité sociale".   Pendant toute la journée de dimanche, des milliers de policiers se sont efforcés de canaliser la manifestation à Pékin, la plus importante depuis celles de Tiananmen en 1989, et d'éviter tout débordement, même si les manifestants ont pu exprimer leur colère en brisant les vitres des bâtiments des deux ambassades à coups de pierre.
   La façade de l'ambassade américaine, protégée par un impressionnant cordon de policiers portant des casques, mais pas de boucliers, était couverte de peinture rouge, noire et bleue, tandis que des pierres et des canettes jonchaient le sol.
   En fin de soirée, seule une cinquantaine de manifestants restaient sur les lieux face à une quarantaine de policiers. Le calme était revenu dans le quartier diplomatique, par contraste avec la nuit précédente qui avait donné lieu à des scènes de vandalisme.
   A Canton, en revanche, des manifestations se poursuivaient toujours en fin de soirée devant le consulat américain.
   A Pékin, la situation est restée très tendue pendant la journée, avec des actes de violence commis contre au moins une journaliste américaine, tandis que certains manifestants critiquaient ouvertement la mollesse de la réaction chinoise à "l'agression" menée contre l'ambassade chinoise à Belgrade.
   "Si Mao était encore là, il aurait rendu les coups", a assuré un manifestant, très en colère. "Depuis 20 ans, les Etats-Unis ne cessent de nous persécuter. Ils nous humilient. Il ne faut plus coopérer avec eux", a-t-il déclaré.
   "Oeil pour oeil, sang pour sang", "Du sang frais pour régler les comptes", proclamaient les banderoles, tandis que les manifestants, le poing levé, entonnaient à tour de role l'hymne national chinois et "L'Internationale".
   L'explosion de colère de la population chinoise survient alors que le régime a lancé ces dernières semaines une vaste campagne sur le thème du patriotisme, coïncidant avec le 80ème anniversaire du mouvement du 4 mai 1919, qui avait conduit à la création du parti communiste chinois deux ans plus tard.
   Le mouvement de 1919, qui avait commencé avec une manifestation de 3.000 étudiants sur la place Tiananmen, protestant contre une clause du traité de Versailles prévoyant le transfert au Japon des anciennes concessions allemandes en Chine, s'était rapidement transformé en un processus général de modernisation intellectuelle.
   Après une première série de manifestations à travers la Chine samedi, dont celle qui s'est terminée par l'incendie partiel du consulat des Etats-Unis à Chengdu (sud-ouest), l'agitation a fait tache d'huile dimanche en donnant également lieu à des manifestations dans plusieurs grandes villes de province.
   L'agence officielle Chine nouvelle a ainsi fait état de 50.000 manifestants à Xian (nord), 30.000 à Hangzhou (est), plusieurs milliers à Xiamen (sud-est) en insistant sur le fait que la Chine n'avait plus l'intention d'accepter "les persécutions et les humiliations", une allusion au traitement infligé à la Chine par les puissances occidentales au 19ème siècle.    Dix mille étudiants, selon la police, ont par ailleurs manifesté dimanche devant le consulat américain de Shanghaï.

Le roi du Cambodge Norodom Sihanouk a condamné lundi le bombardement par l'OTAN de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, qu'il estime ``cruel et injustifiable''. ``Je condamne fortement cet acte extrêmement cruel et injustifiable ainsi que ses auteurs'', a-t-il écrit dans une lettre adressée à l'ambassadeur de Chine au Cambodge.(AP, 10/5/99)

Vietnam on Saturday announced protests against recent NATO missile attacks on the Chinese embassy in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade."We (Vietnam) objects to NATO missile attacks on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which left several people dead and injured, and violated international laws," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.The spokesman told foreign reporters in Hanoi that Vietnam's viewpoint over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air strikes against Yugoslavia had been clarified in the Foreign Ministry's announcement on March 25."Vietnam would like to send a message of condolence to the Chinese government and the families of the victims," said the spokesman. The spokesman said Vietnam wanted an immediate stop to NATO military campaigns and the Kosovo crisis to be resolved through peaceful means on the basis of respecting Yugoslavia's independence, sovereignty and legitimate interests.(SAIGON TIMES DAILY, 10/5/99)

Le régime chinois confirme qu'il soutient les manifestations
   PEKIN, 9 mai (AFP) - Le régime chinois a confirmé dimanche qu'il "soutenait" les manifestations "légales" largement organisées par les autorités dans tout le pays contre le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade, tout en appelant les Chinois à la retenue.   "La Chine soutient fermement et protège, conformément à la loi, toutes les activités de protestation légales contre l'attaque de l'OTAN, sous direction américaine, contre l'ambassade de Chine en Yougoslavie, a indiqué le vice-président Hu Jintao dans une déclaration solennelle à la télévision.   M. Hu a cependant appelé la population au calme en insistant sur le
respect "de la stabilité sociale" après deux jours de défilés parfois violents devant les représentations américaines et britanniques en Chine.   "Nous pensons que les masses, prenant en compte les intérêts fondamentaux de la Nation et l'ensemble de la situation, conduiront ces activités en bon ordre et dans le respect de la loi afin de maintenir la stabilité sociale", a déclaré le vice-président chinois.   Le vice-président a appelé les citoyens à "prévenir l'apparition de comportements extrêmes et à être vigilants afin d'empêcher certaines personnes d'utiliser cette occasion pour perturber l'ordre social normal".   M. Hu a ajouté que la Chine protégerait les diplomates ainsi que les ressortissants étrangers présents dans le pays.   Il n'a pas annoncé de mesure de représailles contre l'OTAN ou les pays membres de l'Alliance atlantique, ni accusé les Occidentaux d'avoir délibérément voulu faire couler le sang chinois, comme l'a laissé entendre dimanche le Quotidien du Peuple dans un éditorial.   Samedi, dans la première déclaration officielle chinoise au bombardement de Belgrade, le gouvernement s'était "réservé le droit de prendre des mesures" en réaction à la frappe de l'OTAN.   La Chine, qui a qualifié cette opération de "barbare", a obtenu une réunion immédiate du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU, qui s'est dit "bouleversé". L'OTAN a assuré que le bombardement, qui a fait trois morts et un disparu, n'avait pas été intentionnel.

L'Iran juge "inacceptable" le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine
   TEHERAN, 9 mai (AFP) - Le ministère iranien des Affaires étrangères a qualifié dimanche "d'inacceptable" le bombardement par l'OTAN de l'ambasssade de Chine à Belgrade, et exprimé son inquiétude face à la détérioration de la situation au Kosovo.
   Le porte-parole du ministère, Hamid-Reza Assefi, a déclaré que Téhéran "déplorait la détérioration de la crise" dans la région et était "inquiet face à l'aggravation de la catastrophe humanitaire au Kosovo".   L'Iran "espère que les efforts de la communauté internationale permettront de mettre fin aux difficultés et aux souffrances des musulmans du Kosovo", a ajouté le porte-parole, cité par l'agence officielle IRNA.   L'OTAN a affirmé que le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi, qui a fait trois morts et un disparu ainsi qu'une vingtaine de blessés, était une "erreur regrettable".   Ce bombardement a provoqué de vives protestations de la part de Pékin et Moscou, et de nombreuses manifestations anti-OTAN et anti-américaines
en Chine.

Réactions dans la presse chinoise (10 mai 99) après le bombardement de l'Ambassade de Chine à Belgrade
sources : Asia Pulse, Reuters, journaux de Hong Kong et de Shanghai

9/05/99 CHINA: LEADING CHINESE PAPER BLASTS NATO RAIDS AGAINST CHINESE EMBASSY.
BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhua) - China's foremost newspaper, the People's Daily, has stressed that any attempt to intimidate the Chinese people with force would prove futile and warned that the U. S.-led NATO will commit a historical mistake if it ignores the Chinese people's indignation at its barbaric attacks against the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia.
"The Chinese people have flown into furies. The U.S.-led NATO's outrageous attacks against the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia have ignited the Chinese people's indignation," said the newspaper in a commentary to be published in Monday's issue.
The commentary, entitled "The Chinese People Are Not to be Humiliated", said the Chinese government issued a stern statement on the same day as the savage act occurred, most strongly protesting NATO's crime of barbarically infringing the Chinese sovereignty and brutally ravaging China's dignity, urging NATO to bear all responsibilities arising therefrom and stressing the reservation of its right to take further action on the matter. China's National People's Congress, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, various democratic parties, All-China Industry and Trade Association and the media have issued statements and held rallies and talks to condemn NATO's bloody atrocities. The commentary said that indignant university students and people across the country have staged demonstrations, sternly denouncing the U.S.-led NATO's outrages and firmly supporting the Chinese government's position of defending the nation's sovereignty and national pride. They shouted: "China is not to be ;bullied. The Chinese nation is not to be humiliated." NATO's attacks against Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia is a flagrant infringement of China's sovereignty and pride, a gross ravage of the Chinese people's national sentiment and an open provocation to the 1.2 billion Chinese people, noted the commentary. The bloody fact has made people realize who are flagrantly breaching the U.N. Charter and the norms of the international law and destroying the world's peace, and who are brutally killing and injuring innocent civilians in Yugoslavia and even ravaging the lives of diplomatic functionaries of other countries in the post-Cold War era when the people all over the world aspire for peace and development. The commentary noted that NATO's atrocities have stripped itself of its "humanitarian" cloak and fully exposed its savage face as an aggressor. The founding of the People's Republic of China marked that the Chinese people had stood up and the era when the Chinese were bullied by foreign powers has gone forever, the commentary said. For more than a century, the Chinese people have shed blood and even sacrificed their lives for safeguarding national sovereignty and dignity, the commentary said, adding that after fifty years of hard struggles, the Chinese people have
embarked on the path to prosperity. If anybody thinks he can intimidate the Chinese through the use of force, he will find himself completely wrong, the commentary warned. The U.S.-led NATO should bear all consequences of its barbaric missile attacks
on the Chinese embassy, it said, pointing out that NATO's atrocity has ignited the Chinese people's patriotism. Shouting "anti-aggression", "anti-hegemony" and "safeguard sovereignty" slogans, the Chinese people have also uttered their heartfelt wishes - to love and rejuvenate China, the commentary said. The commentary believed a powerful and prosperous China with all its people and nationalities united in one heart, is the guarantee for the Chinese nation's existence and prosperity. Young students and people from all walks of life vowed to turn grief into strength, work and study hard, enhance China's productivity and scientific and technological level, realize the goal of modernizing China's industry, agriculture, science and defense sectors, and improve the country's overall strength. This is the most cherished patriotism which should be carried forward, the commentary said. China's sovereignty and national dignity allow of no aggression and the Chinese people, who are not afraid of hegemony, will tolerate no bullying from others, the commentary said. The more than a century's arduous struggle of the Chinese nation has, and will
continue to prove that the great Chinese nation is invincible, it said. If the U.S.-led NATO turns a blind eye to Chinese people's indignation, it is doomed to make a huge mistake and will never go away unpunished, said the commentary.
XINHUA DAILY TELEGRAPH
- Chinese organizations, including students, workers and women's groups, expressed support for te firm stance taken by the Chinese government and voiced their strong protest against the NATO attacks on the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia on May 7.
- Officers and men of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese armed police expressed their indignation over the brutal U.S.-led NATO attack on the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia and strongly condemned it.
All of them expressed their firm support for the Chinese government, saying they are determined to safeguard the peaceful life of the Chinese people and the fruit of reforms and opening-up, and to protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
SING TAO DAILY - China's vice-president Hu Jintao said in an official response to the Chinese embassy bombing in Yugoslavia by NATO that the country supports legal protest activities against the bombing.
- The Hong Kong stock market is clouded with uncertainty following the Chinese embassy bombing by NATO. Analysts say politics may speed up downward adjustments.
MING PAO DAILY NEWS - Delay in Sino-American talks over China's entry to the World Trade Organisation is feared as a result of the Chinese embassy bombing in Yugoslavia.
- Senior Hong Kong government officials have arrived in Beijing to discuss policy options related to the right of abode issue.
(Editorial) Sino-American relations have come to a dangerous crossroads following the embassy bombing. The Chinese government now faces a dilemma over controlling the spreading protests.
APPLE DAILY - Demonstrations over the embassy bombing have spread across the country with five American missions on the mainland surrounded by angry protesters.
HONG KONG ECONOMIC JOURNAL - Diplomatic circles believe that the Sino-American relationship will not be shaken by NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. Analysts say commercial activity between the two countries will not
be hindered.
LIBERATION DAILY - Vice president Hu Jintao urges calm after the NATO bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Shanghai people show their support for China's handling of the bombing incident with "concrete acts".
SHANGHAI EXPRESS - The People's Liberation Army says it supports Beijing's position over the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

Des plans périmés à l'origine de la bavure de l'Otan (Reuters, 10/5/99)
D'anciens plans de Belgrade, datant d'avant la construction de l'ambassade de Chine dans le centre de la capitale yougoslave, sont à l'origine du bombardement de l'Otan vendredi soir, révèle le Washington Post dans son édition de lundi."La vérité, aussi tragique et embarassante soit-elle, c'est que nos cartes ne portaient pas mention de l'ambassade chinoise, nulle part", a expliqué au journal un haut responsable de l'Alliance. Citant d'autres sources haut placées à l'Otan, le Washington Post explique que la CIA a commis une erreur d'identification de cible se basant sur ces cartes, sans préciser comment une telle erreur a pû être commise. Il semble en fait que les responsabilités soient plus larges que cela, ajoute le quotidien américain. Le processus de désignation d'une cible fait intervenir de nombreux acteurs, pas seulement la CIA : le commandement des forces alliées en Europe, l'état-major inter-armes américain, la direction de l'Otan. A tous ces niveaux, les personnes abilitées à signer l'ordre de bombardement l'ont fait sans remarquer que les repérages ne correspondaient pas à l'objectif. "Ils disposent d'une variété de moyens pour vérifier une proposition de cible et personne ne semble avoir eu d'objection à propos de celle-ci", a expliqué un officiel allié au Post. Le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine a fait quatre morts et une vingtaine de blessés dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi.

10/05/99 CHINA: AMERICANS BECOME ENEMY NO. 1 IN CHINA. Business Day, Thailand.
BEIJING - Hurling rocks and wielding flaming poles, students turned Beijing's diplomatic quarter into a battlefield yesterday, declaring Americans to be enemy number one. "Kill Americans! the crowds roared.US President Bill Clinton was depicted on hundreds of posters with a Hitler-like moustache. Students had Swastikas daubed on their T-shirts across the letters
USA. American reporters at the scene were targets of student wrath."What is your nationality?" they demanded to know of the handful of foreign journalists who braved the crowds. Those who admitted being American or British were jostled and given an earful of abuse.Witnesses reported attacks on Westerners, including one man who apparently piqued demonstrators by showing up with a Chinese woman.Several Western reporters were punched and kicked. CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon was struck while delivering a live telephone report from the scene. As some students hustled her to safety others yelled "kill her!". Frequently the students broke into English to shriek four-letter curses. The crude language was echoed even in the normally restrained official media. One newspaper said that US talk of humanity, democracy and freedom were "goddamned bullshit"."Clinton is always talking about human rights. Well he is the world's number one offender!" said student Li Zehong, before hurling a grapefruit-sized chunk of concrete at the US embassy.A female student from Beijing University of Science and Technology, her face
streaked with tears, screamed shrilly into a bullhorn: "Down with American Imperialism!" Hundreds of classmates joined in the chant. Demonstrators carried Chinese signs reading "Return Blood Debts with Blood". Some brandished English signs reading "Eye for an Eye". As bricks and hunks of concrete rained on the British embassy, a man and his adolescent son weaved through the crowds carrying a sign that read: "We beseech President Jiang (Zemin) to declare war on the United States". A black-and-white target, worn by many protesters in Yugoslavia, has become the ubiquitous symbol of student anger in China, too.
It appeared as punctuation in the headline of the Beijing Youth Daily: "Shock, Anger, Protest". Newspapers have been fanning the emotion by calling the Belgrade attack deliberate and by publishing large pictures of bloodied Chinese diplomats. Vendors have been doing a roaring trade selling them.In Shanghai, a man was spotted bolting out of a beauty salon, his hair still lathered in shampoo suds, to catch one passing newspaper seller on his way past. One student handed out flyers, asking a journalist to deliver it to Clinton. The shaky English read: "1.2 billion people on your back, Bill, we are ready to departure at any moment to Washington as soldiers!" More than 50,000 people staged a protest in the northern city of Xian and more than 30,000 students took to the streets of the eastern city of Hangzhou, according to the official Xinhua news agency. More than 10,000 hurled abuse, stones and other objects at the US consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, witnesses said. Another 10,000 protested in Shanghai where US flags were burned in the streets. Other protests were held in Chengdu, Shenyang, Guilin and other cities, the
authorities said. Demonstrators set fire to the US consulate in Chengdu on Saturday and all consulate personnel were evacuated.
US ambassador James Sasser issued a statement yesterday expressing profound sorrow at the loss of Chinese life in the Belgrade mission. The attack was due to "faulty information" about the nature of the building targeted, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Brussels. The US president offered his apologies on Saturday. "It was a tragic mistake and I want to offer my sincere regrets and condolences to the leaders and people of China," Clinton said, while insisting NATO should continue with its mission.
But Vice President Hu Jintao expressed strong official support for the student-led protests. In a nationwide broadcast, he insisted however that foreign diplomats would be protected. "China firmly supports and protects in accordance with the law all legal protest
activities against the US-led NATO attack on the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia," Hu said. "China will protect foreign diplomatic mission and institutes, foreign nationals in China and foreigners who come to China for economic, trade, educational and
cultural activities, according to (international and Chinese) law," said Hu.

09/05/99 CHINA: HONG KONG MEDIA CONDEMN NATO'S ATTACK ON CHINESE EMBASSY.
Text of report by Xinhua news agency
 Hong Kong, 9th May: The US-led NATO attack on the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia has aroused grave concern and strong indignation among Hong Kong's mass media.Local newspapers, in their editorials Sunday [9th May], pointed out that the
barbarous attack on the Chinese embassy was a gross violation of China's sovereignty and a wanton violation of the conventions governing international relations. This has also enabled the international community to see more clearly the hegemonic countenance of the US-led NATO which is waving the so-called human rights banner to interfere in others' internal affairs, the papers said.The papers devoted a number of full-pages to editorials, articles and photos covering the US-led NATO air-raid on the Chinese embassy, the Chinese government's strong protest and condemnation against this action, large-scale protests in various parts of China and the international community's concern and condemnation of this barbarous bombing.
'Ming Pao Daily News' said that an embassy is a sovereign territory of a particular country and is sacred and inviolable. It should be protected even during a war. The US-led NATO must make apologies and indemnities and stop air-raids, otherwise the Chinese people and government will never let the matter drop.
'Wen Wei Po' said in its editorial that the bombing was not an accident, but a crime deliberately planned and perpetrated. The US-led NATO has therefore owed blood debts to the Chinese people. This is also a vivid lesson for the world people and those responsible for the bombing must be thoroughly investigated, the paper said.
'Oriental Daily News' cited the bombing of the Chinese embassy as the most direct military provocation against China since the Korean War. However, the NATO only gave a slight touch on this matter by a mere regret, fully revealing its ugly face of hegemonism. The paper asked: What right does the NATO have to propagate the so-called human rights while it is utterly disregarding the lives of the innocent people? And why the USA does not show the least respect for the human rights of the Chinese embassy personnel while it is chattering on about the so-called "human rights" to China?
The 'Hong Kong Daily News' said that bombing an embassy is tantamount to encroaching upon a country's territory. Such actions can absolutely trigger a world war. The Western countries often fear the Yugoslav issue may lead to the third world war. However, if this happens, the arch criminal will be no other than the US-led NATO, the paper said.
'Ta Kung Pao' in its editorial sharply criticized the US-led NATO for its hegemonic act. If NATO, which is interfering others' internal affairs under the pretext of the so-called "human rights above sovereignty," is bent on doing so against the tide of history, it will inevitably be opposed and condemned by people all over the world, the people of the USA and NATO countries as well, the
paper said.
Local TV stations and other mass media here also gave wide coverage to the bombing and expressed their strong indignation.
Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 0701 gmt 9 May 99.
BBC MONITORING ASIA PACIFIC - POLITICAL 09/05/1999

09/05/99 XINHUA WORLD NEWS SUMMARY AT 0100GMT, MAY 9.
TEHRAN, May 8 (Xinhua) - Iran's state-run television said on Saturday night that NATO attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was an open violation of international conventions."The attack on the Chinese embassy openly violated the 1961 Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations," the television said in a commentary.It noted that the NATO has trampled the U.N. Charter and international norms by launching air strikes for more than 40 days on Yugoslavia without consent from the U.N. Security Council. ( Iran-TV-NATO)

BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) - China's foremost newspaper, the People's Daily, has strongly condemned the U.S.-led NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, accusing the alliance of a savage violation of Chinese sovereignty, which has provoked extreme indignation in the Chinese government and people. Foreign embassies and consulates were generally accepted as the sovereign territory of their countries and were protected by international law, stressed the newspaper in a commentary to be published in Sunday's issue.At midnight local time on May 7, NATO hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade with missiles, killing three people, injuring more than 20 and severely damaging the embassy buildings. (China-NATO-Commentary)

UNITED NATIONS, May 8 (Xinhua) -- NATO's bombing at the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was a gross violation of the sovereignty of China, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations as well as the basic norms of international relations, China stressed here Saturday morning.The statement was made by Qin Huasun, Chinese Permanent Representative to the
United Nations, at the United Nations Security Council's open debate.(China-Condemn-NATO Bombing)

08/05/99 CHINA: "TENS OF THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS" IN GUANGZHOU PROTEST OVER NATO
BOMBING. Text of report by Xinhua news agency, BBC
Guangzhou, 8th May: Tens of thousands of students from over 10 universities in this capital of south China's Guangdong Province took to the street this afternoon to express their strong protest against US-led NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. Braving heavy rain, students gathered around the places where the consulates of the United States, Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands are located, singing the national anthem and chanting such slogans as "strongly condemning
the US act of hegemonism", "strongly condemning US-led NATO's act of aggression" and "firmly supporting the Chinese government's solemn statement".Public security men were present on the occasion to maintain order. The NATO attack at midnight Friday had led to three confirmed deaths of Chinese - a female Xinhua correspondent, a correspondent of Guangming Daily and his wife, with one missing and more than 20 injured. In Beijing, there were also students expressing protest around the US embassy, which was approved by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

08/05/99 CHINA: XINHUA, CHINESE DAILY CONDEMN NATO OVER BOMBING DEATHS. KYODO NEWS 08/05/1999
China's official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday strongly condemned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for causing the death of one of its correspondents in the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on Friday night.
Guangming Daily, a Chinese national newspaper, also blasted the attack in which one of its correspondents and his wife were killed, the agency reported separately.
"Xinhua News Agency expresses its utmost indignation and severe condemnation, and lodges its strongest protest to NATO led by the United States," the Xinhua report quoted a leading official of the news agency as saying. Xinhua correspondent Shao Yunhuan, who reportedly volunteered to go to Belgrade in March as the Kosovo conflict intensified, was apparently killed when NATO
missiles mistakenly hit the embassy where she was staying with her husband.Shao's husband was injured when the embassy was "hit by three missiles in three different angles," Xinhua said. Shao, born in 1951, worked twice in the Yugoslav capital as resident correspondent, including the period between 1990 and 1993 when she covered the developments in Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the news agency said. Guangming Daily's Belgrade correspondent Xu Xinghu and his wife have been
confirmed as killed in the attack, Xinhua reported.The newspaper "expressed deep condolence over their death and sincere sympathy to their families and relatives," the agency said.
Russian news agency Itar-Tass, reporting from Beijing, said a military attache was also killed in the NATO bombing.

Réactions dans la presse américaine

  Déclaration conjointe de William Cohen et George Tenet
   WASHINGTON, 9 mai (AFP) - Le secrétaire américain à la Défense William Cohen et le directeur de la CIA (Central intelligence agency) George J. Tenet ont livré dans une déclaration conjointe dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche leur explication du bombardement vendredi de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade.   L'erreur provient d'une "information erronée" concernant la
localisation de la cible visée. Le porte-parole de l'OTAN Jamie Shea a précisé dimanche que cette erreur était due à des "agents de renseignement", sans en préciser la nationalité.   Voici la version intégrale de la déclaration commune Cohen/Tenet:
   - "Nous regrettons profondément les décès et les blessures causées par le bombardement de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade la nuit dernière. Le bombardement fut une erreur. (Les personnes) impliquées dans le ciblage ont cru par erreur que la Direction yougoslave de l'armement était à l'endroit qui fut frappé. Ce bâtiment de soutien militaire était la cible prévue, et certainement pas l'ambassade de Chine".
  - "L'OTAN a mené jusqu'à présent des milliers de frappes contre des objectifs spécifiques dans sa campagne aérienne, avec un degré de précision et de professionalisme sans précédent dans l'histoire militaire. Nous regrettons toute perte de vie civile ou tout autre dommage non voulu, mais il n'existe pas d'opérations militaires sans risques".
   - "Nous avons examiné conjointement cette faute au cours des dernières heures. Il ne s'agit ni d'une erreur de pilote, ni d'une
erreur mécanique. Clairement, une information erronée a engendré une erreur dans le ciblage initial du bâtiment. Ensuite, les longues procédures mises en place pour sélectionner et valider les cibles n'ont pas corrigé l'erreur initiale. Une enquête sur nos procédures nous a convaincu que ce fut une anomalie qui ne se reproduira probablement pas. Par conséquent, les autorités de l'OTAN ont l'intention de continuer et d'intensifier leur campagne aérienne".

Text Of Explanation From U.S. Officials (International Herald Tribune)....Reuters
The following is the text of a statement by Defense Secretary William Cohen and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, on NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade:
''We deeply regret the loss of life and injuries from the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last night. The bombing was an error. Those involved in targeting mistakenly believed that the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement was at the location that was hit. The military supply facility was the intended target, certainly not the Chinese Embassy.
''NATO has conducted thousands of strikes against specific aim points in this air campaign to date, with a degree of precision and professionalism unparalleled in military history. We regret any loss of civilian life or other unintended damage, but there is no such thing as risk-free military operations.
''We have been jointly examining this mistake over the intervening hours. It was the result of neither pilot nor mechanical error. Clearly, faulty information led to a mistake in the initial targeting of this facility. In addition, the extensive process in place used to select and validate targets did not correct this original error. A review of our procedures has convinced us that this was an anomaly that is unlikely to occur again. Therefore, NATO authorities intend to continue and intensify the air campaign.''
 

For The Alliance, Suspect Friends
(International Herald Tribune)....John Vinocur
The outcry over the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade exposes the incoherence of a NATO strategy that avoids seeking a clear military victory and leaves a solution to the war in Yugoslavia, in part, to the acquiescence of old adversaries turned occasional friends.

Blair Rallies Public Support After China Embassy Strike
(New York Times)....Warren Hoge
Prime Minister Tony Blair, the most outspoken of the allied leaders in championing NATO since the start of the war over Kosovo, said Sunday that the attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade should not and would not deter the alliance from intensifying its bombing.

Bombing Adds New Strains To Already Tense Ties Between U.S. And China
(New York Times)....Jane Perlez
The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade has far greater potential to harm an already battered long-term relationship between the United States and Beijing than to frustrate any peace settlement for Kosovo that the United Nations might help broker, administration officials said Sunday.

A Protest Beijing Can Endorse
(Washington Post)....John Pomfret
...Indeed, unlike in the Tiananmen Square marches, China's government has very good reasons for allowing these demonstrations, Chinese and Western sources said.

China's Leaders Stoke Anger At U.S. At Their Peril
(New York Times)....Erik Eckholm
Through their extended campaign to portray the United States and NATO as evil aggressors in Yugoslavia, and now their endorsement of mass demonstrations involving the unimpeded stoning of the American Embassy here, China's leaders may have unleashed forces that will come back to haunt them.

Party Uses Belgrade Bombing To Unify Restive Chinese Public
(Wall Street Journal)....Matt Forney, Ian Johnson and Marcus W. Brauchli
...The legacies of propaganda, censorship and state-dictated action loom large in China, no matter how much the country's trillion-dollar economy has modernized or how reformist its leaders often seem.

Anemic Arsenal Clouds China's Nuclear Threat
(Los Angeles Times)....Bob Drogin
...But U.S. military and intelligence experts say they still can't determine precisely how much China really has obtained from America, or how significant the potential gain has been--or will be--to Beijing's military modernization effort.

More People Are Starving, N. Korea Says
(Washington Post)....Unattributed
For the first time, North Korea has released figures indicating that hundreds of thousands of people might have died from starvation in the past few years.

Anti-U.S. Protests Mount In China As Officials Study Bombing Error (New York Times, May 10, 1999)....Elisabeth Rosenthal
BEIJING -- American diplomats said they felt like hostages in their offices Sunday as tens of thousands of furious demonstrators marched for the second day to protest NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and pelted embassy buildings with eggs, stones, paint balloons and chunks of concrete.
By Monday morning, as people returned to work and school, the streets around the American Embassy were mostly empty under heavy police security. Only one delegation of about 300 students chanted slogans peacefully in front of the compound. As was the case Sunday, the restthe rest of Beijing was calm, although anti-American sentiment ran high.
Sunday's demonstrations dwarfed similar protests held Saturday because a large number of Beijingers flocked to the embassy district to join student delegations from dozens of universities. Some came merely to see the scene, many more to march, to sing and, above all, to vent their anger.
Just a month after Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's visit to the United States, many of the protesters carried home-made signs carrying thoughts like "Blood for Blood" or American flags marked with tiny swastikas instead of stars. Some of the protesters screamed insults at people they identified as American and one American television journalist was hit on the head as she delivered a live report.
The Clinton administration scrambled to limit the damage the embassy bombing may do to a long-term relationship already battered by differences over trade and human rights and charges of espionage. President Clinton sent President Jiang Zemin a letter to express condolences and lay out NATO's case against Yugoslavia, a White House spokesman said.
But neither that letter nor a statement of deep regret from the U.S. ambassador to China, James Sasser, were carried in newspapers in Beijing, where on Sunday long double rows of unarmed policemen locking arms stood in front of both the British and U.S. embassies, and for the most part prevented protesters from entering. But the policeman did nothing to discourage or stop the rain of objects hurled from the street; a few even snapped photographs.
By the end of the day Sunday, the imposing facade of the embassy's old stone office building had been thoroughly defaced, its windows broken, signs stolen, and its facade covered with splotches of red and blue paint.
Protests also occurred in a number of other cities over the weekend, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang and the southwestern city of Chengdu, where the U.S. consul general's home was set on fire.
"The embassy compounds are still under siege and today was worse, at times much worse, than yesterday," said Bill Palmer, an embassy spokesman in Beijing who said he was "stuck" in one of the mission's buildings Sunday evening. "We feel like we're hostages. We can not come and go safely because of inadequate Chinese security."
Sunday evening, Vice President Hu Jintao gave an unusual live television address in which he both endorsed the demonstrations and cautioned against extremes, reflecting the government's desire to maintain control while not alienating what is clearly a popular movement.
"The Chinese government firmly supports and protects, in accordance with the law, all legal protest activities," he said. But he added: "We must prevent overreaction and insure social stability."
The protest Sunday was an odd amalgam of extreme order and total chaos, as tens of thousands of protesters marched the circuitous half-mile protest route designated by the People's Armed Police, passing the British and U.S. embassy compounds.
In mid-afternoon on a glorious spring day, thousands of protesters waited in line to enter the densely packed, slow moving river of people that moved along the protest route, as if awaiting admission to some outdoor rock concert.
Delegations of several hundred students from schools like the Beijing Chemical University and the Beijing College of Fashion entered the route chanting angry slogans: "American Killers" and "Revenge." A number had brought along rocks to throw at the embassies. And the crowd applauded as protesters burned American flags.
A number of the protesters carried pictures of the two journalists killed in the Chinese embassy bombing. The third victim was the wife of one of the journalists. The bodies are likely to be returned to China on Tuesday, possibly provoking a further public outpouring of rage.
Students took turns taking photos of each other. "After the bombing of the embassy, I feel more than ever that America is an international bully," said Zhang Xingxing, a 20-year-old student wearing a headband that read "inexcusable murder."
Unlike Saturday's protesters, who were nearly all students, Sunday's crowds included businessmen, lawyers, teachers and mothers with children.
"I heard the news on the radio while riding in a taxi, and my shock quickly turned to disbelief, then outrage," said Ding Ming, 26, an outgoing young man in a polo shirt who works for an insurance company.
Ding came to the embassy Saturday night with friends and then again Sunday with his girlfriend. "We just walked about -- we do not throw rocks and bottles," he said. "Yes, there were some in the crowd who went to extremes, but most people here are sensible. They know their issue is with the American government and still have friendly feelings towards the American people."
The police generally kept the crowd moving on Sunday but allowed stops in front of both the British and U.S. embassies, where the protesters often turned aggressive.
Sunday afternoon at the British Embassy, one student got through police lines to scale the wall of the elegant red building and lowered the Union Jack.
But the featured stop was clearly the No. 3 Compound of the U.S. Embassy, which houses the offices of top embassy officials, including the ambassador. The paint-stained building looked like an amusement park target. In the dense crowd, groups of young men set off firecrackers, broke up pieces of sidewalk to use as missiles, begged police officers to let them in to steal the American flag and gawked at the battered cars that remained in a nearby embassy parking lot.
The People's Armed Police have told U.S. officials here that they will insure that the protesters do not get into the embassy grounds, but make no other guarantees, said Palmer, the embassy spokesman. He said that his office has more than a dozen holes in its windows and an equal number of chunks of concrete on the floor.
An American student living in China, Shuan Rein, said he was beaten by a group of protesting Chinese workers in front of the U.S. Embassy gate on Sunday when he tried to explain that the Americans were sorry about the bombing. Students rescued him and the police took him away.
"I think the stone throwing is understandable because what was done is intolerable, so I understand why people are driven to extreme reprisals," said Ding Rong, a 29-year-old industrial designer, who said she came because she attended the same elementary school as one of the slain reporters.
At various moments on Sunday afternoon, Cuban diplomats, apparently buoyed by such a fervent resurgence of anti-American sentiment in China, held up huge photographs of Castro shaking hands with Jiang. They shouted "Long live socialism. Down with America. Long live China," and crowds returned the refrain.
Many in the protests said they would most likely return to their studies or jobs on Monday. They were uncertain of exactly what they wanted from NATO or the United States, but yearned for some kind of revenge. Placards carried messages like "Hang Bill Clinton."
Ding Rong said that she hoped the protest would both humble the Americans and encourage China's leaders to protest more forcefully against the bombing. Others said they merely sought an explanation.
"They need to offer a fair and sincere apology and to thoroughly investigate the matter," said Ding Ming. "It seems unbelievable that three bombs could fall on a foreign embassy by mistake."

Protesters Trap U.S. Envoy In Beijing (Washington Post, May 10, 1999)....John Pomfret
BEIJING, May 9 – Thousands of demonstrators massed in front of the U.S. Embassy for a second day today, trapping the ambassador and 13 other staff members as protests continued over the NATO attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Ambassador Jim Sasser said he was a "hostage" of the protesters, who hurled rocks and debris at the building, while others attacked the British and Albanian missions and continued to demonstrate at U.S. consulates elsewhere in China. Sasser said he was unable to leave the premises because he didn't have adequate protection.
"You could hear the windows crashing and the glass going everywhere," said Sasser, who, unknown to the protesters, has been trapped inside one of the embassy buildings for the past two days. "Even when I tried to lie down on the floor for a couple of hours of sleep, I could still hear the chanting and rock throwing. It lasted all night."
Sasser, in a phone interview, complained that his wife and son had been isolated from him in another embassy building without U.S. Marine protection. He called on the Chinese government to provide him and his staff with protection to move from one building to another so he could be reunited with his family.
Undersecretary of State Thomas R. Pickering said on ABC's "This Week" that U.S. officials have voiced their concern to the Chinese government and will continue to press officials about the embassy staff's safety.
"We are deeply worried about our people who are inside our embassies, who, if these crowds get out of hand, are going to be subject . . . to serious violence," he said.
In addition, President Clinton sent Chinese leader Jiang Zemin a letter of condolences over the accidental attack on Beijing's embassy in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
Several satellite-guided bombs struck the embassy, which was mistakenly targeted late Friday as NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia continued.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who met Saturday in Washington with Li Zhaoxing, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, also sought assurances that the staff would be protected.
Today's protests in Beijing took on a harsher tone than demonstrations Saturday. An American reporter was hit with a rock, other Americans were threatened and one was rescued from an angry crowd by concerned protesters. "I want to kill Americans," shouted Li Guangqiao, a 25-year-old graduate student, as he marched toward the embassy. "Kill the big noses!"
Attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions have already occurred in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenyang. In the southwestern city of Chengdu, protesters burned the residence of the U.S. consul general and pelted the consulate with rocks. "This hasn't been seen in 10 years," said a police officer outside the embassy in Beijing. "The masses are huge, and it's incited people's nationalist feelings." Asked if the police could lose control of the situation, he answered: "Yes."
Once the protesters snaked their way through the city to the front of the U.S. Embassy, demonstrators uprooted pavement slabs and hurled them at the embassy. They also tossed burning U.S. flags and flaming effigies over the compound's white iron gates, and launched three molotov cocktails.
Several Chinese tried to scale the fence surrounding the building but they were pulled back by police. Protesters shouted: "Take down the flag!"
Protesters have made four demands known: that U.S. flags be flown at half staff across the United States; that NATO immediately stop its bombing campaign in Yugoslavia; that the United States issue an open apology for the attack; and that NATO be dismantled.
But today, the protesters seemed to want something more violent. "Don't get Chinese mad," said one. "Remember the Korean War!" when Chinese and American troops fought each other in the early 1950s.
In a nationwide broadcast today, Vice President Hu Jintao said the government supports "legal protest activities," but "we must prevent overreaction."
Sasser, a former senator from Tennessee, has been holed up in one of the embassy buildings with eight Marines, two political officers, two State Department technicians and the embassy's regional security officer. The group is living on Marine meals-ready-to-eat, which the ambassador said he "could not recommend for long-term survival."
He said he had several tough conversations with Chinese officials over the security their police had provided. He went so far as to call Ambassador Li to ask for his help. Sasser was particularly incensed that his wife, Mary, and son, Gray, were under threat Saturday night in his residence.
"They started breaking windows in my residence last night," he said. "They had [300] to 400 people out there and we didn't have any Marines to protect them, just Chinese police. Today they knocked out a lot of windows. We tried to get some people out of there this morning to catch an airplane but they were turned back by a group of 20 protesters."
In his office, he said, the camaraderie helped him relax.
"There was a constant din of noise. You kind of get acclimated to it," he said. "After a point the stones would come through the window and bounce through the hall. You don't notice it after a while."
The ambassador said he was worried that the Chinese siege of the U.S. Embassy was "not going to be a salutary thing for the relationship or a boost for the relationship."
"It is one thing for a people to demonstrate in opposition to a government or a country's policy," he said, "but it is quite a different thing for them to destroy government property. This sort of thing is very poisonous to a relationship."
"We certainly can understand their hurt and anger arising out of this terrible, tragic accident in Belgrade," he continued, "but that was unintentional and we have apologized for that. But what's occurring now is to some extent intentional. It is intentional."
Sasser said he had been assured by the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the police and the People's Armed Police would be responsible for the safety of U.S. diplomats. But "there were instances today when it was very questionable as to if they could hold back the mobs," he said.
"We're fully prepared to evacuate if necessary," he said. Asked where the U.S. officials would go, he responded: "That's the $64,000 question."
Sasser was supposed to have left China last year, following Clinton's summit with Chinese president Jiang in June and July. He stayed on, partially because the Clinton administration could not find a replacement.

Aim, Not Arms, At The Root Of Mistaken Strike On Embassy (New York Times, May 10, 1999)....Eric Schmitt
WASHINGTON -- The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, was struck by long-range, satellite-guided bombs and identified not by a pilot but by intelligence analysts who routinely use grainy reconnaissance photographs to chose their targets, with apparently little or no vetting from anyone on the ground.
With an investigation under way and NATO still blaming the CIA for picking the wrong target, American officials said Sunday that something obviously went horribly awry in translating the street address of the intended target from the military's airborne pictures.
The intended target was the headquarters of a Yugoslav arms agency, picked because intelligence agencies have long suspected that it helped rivals of America to develop advanced weapons, officials said.
From these reconnaissance photographs, which are used routinely in choosing targets, the analysts apparently picked the Chinese Embassy for attack, even though the two buildings are about 200 yards apart and look nothing alike on the ground. In an aerial photograph the two buildings could look similar.
Deriving geographic coordinates from the images, the analysts apparently plugged the wrong target into the bombs' navigational system, officials said. The bombs, which were dropped by a stealth B-2 bomber, flew precisely to their assigned point, guided along the way by constantly updated radio signals from a constellation of Navstar global positioning satellites.
The intelligence failure led to a deadly case of mistaken identity that killed at least three people and wounded 20. While NATO spared Belgrade from bombing overnight Sunday, officials said that military targets there had not been taken off the bombing list.
Late Saturday night, Defense Secretary William Cohen and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, faxed an unusual joint statement to news organizations insisting that neither pilot error or mechanical failure was to blame. Instead, they said, the bombing was "an anomaly that is unlikely to happen again."
"Clearly, faulty information led to a mistake in the initial targeting of this facility," the statement said. "In addition, the extensive process in place used to select and validate targets did not correct this original error."
But with no further explanation than that for the accident, the opaque statement gave no evidence for why American and NATO officials are sure this will not happen again.
"We've got confidence in the process and we're going to continue to target," Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's military commander, said on the ABC News program "This Week."
With Pentagon and intelligence officials refusing to say anything more about the mishap other than that it was under investigation, these questions are still unanswered: Who was involved in the initial targeting? What safeguards are in place to validate targets? How were the two buildings confused?
Several intelligence experts expressed dismay at such an intelligence blunder. "I'm absolutely dumbfounded," said one senior retired American officer with extensive experience in picking targets. "They should have known long before this conflict where that agency was located."
Intelligence experts said Sunday that the accident also raised questions about the wisdom of the government's decision in 1996 to fold the CIA's photographic intelligence center into a new Pentagon agency, a move that prompted many of the agency's most experienced analysts to leave.
Overall, NATO's track record in the seven-week air war has been pretty good. After more than 5,000 bombing missions that have used more than 15,000 missiles and bombs, there have been relatively few mistakes, largely because of political constraints imposed on both targets and pilots' tactics to avoid downed aviators and civilian casualties.
NATO began its strikes on March 24 with a list of about 100 targets, allied officials said. Most of those targets were selected by military aides to Clark, working with military planners in Belgium, Germany and Italy and with a special set of aides to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.
But the CIA also plays an important role, military officials said. In fact, the targeting information for Serbian targets bombed in Bosnia in 1995 was produced by the CIA's Balkans task force, intelligence officials said.
The target list is constantly being revised, with sites added or dropped based on new intelligence and battlefield assessments.
Once a target is identified for its military value, it is checked and cross-checked for possible risks to civilians. "Each target has an assessment of high, medium or low collateral damage," said one senior Air Force general, using the military term for civilian deaths.
The most sensitive targets, including the arms agency's headquarters, require President Clinton's review and approval, administration officials said. The intended target on Friday night, the federal directorate of supply and procurement, has long been suspected by the CIA of helping American rivals to develop advanced weapons. American intelligence officials say Yugoslavia has a rudimentary chemical weapons program.
NATO officials say the CIA picked the headquarters building, but American officials acknowledged that NATO, the U.S. European Command and the Pentagon's Joint Staff all reviewed and approved it.
From the grainy airborne reconnaissance photographs of downtown Belgrade that NATO military planners use to identify bombing targets, the Chinese Embassy and a headquarters for a Yugoslav arms agency situated nearby look very similar: same size, shape and height.
But at street level, there is no mistaking the embassy's marble structure with blue mirrored glass, flying the distinctive Chinese flag, from the Yugoslav military's white office building on the other side of a major thoroughfare, Lenjinov Bulevar (Lenin Boulevard).
The address of the Chinese Embassy is No. 3, Ulica Tresnjevog Cveta (or Cherry Blossom Street), and lies north of Lenjinov Bulevar, the main highway running through New Belgrade. The address of the arms agency headquarters is No. 2, Bulevar Umetnosti (or Boulevard of the Arts), which lies south of Lenjinov Bulevar.
Both buildings were constructed two to three years ago. The arms agency building is five stories high, a square, white stone or concrete building, with a new wing under construction. The Chinese Embassy is roughly five floors high, has a curved north end, and a separate residence building at the back. The compound, with garden at the back and parking for cars north and south, is encircled by a heavy metal fence.
The accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy underscores the obvious limitations on the Pentagon's high-technology weaponry: The thousands of precision-guided bombs and missiles are only as good as the intelligence on which their targets are based.
Just last week, Brig. Gen. Leroy Barnidge, commander of the Air Force's B-2 wing at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, told reporters that after more than 40 B-2 missions, "everything had gone where it's supposed to go and hit what it was supposed to hit."
Tragically, that was also true Friday night. The B-2, carrying up to 16 satellite-guided bombs called joint direct attack munitions, carried out its assigned mission and hit its assigned building with at least three of the bombs, American officials said Sunday. Six Air Force B-2s had dropped more than 500 of the bombs during the air campaign, Barnidge said last week.

Belgrade Target Never Verified On Outdated Map (Washington Post, May 10, 1999....Bradley Graham and Steven Pearlstein
In mistakenly targeting the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade Friday night, U.S. intelligence officials were working from an outdated map issued before China built its diplomatic compound several years ago, American and NATO authorities said yesterday.
"The tragic and embarrassing truth is that our maps simply did not show the Chinese Embassy anywhere in that vicinity," a senior NATO official said.
It was the CIA, officials said, that initially misidentified the site, but there was no explanation from the agency yesterday about how such an error could have occurred. Privately, several senior officials outside the CIA expressed disbelief that the location of the intended target – the Yugoslav Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement – apparently had not been verified by sources on the ground in Belgrade.
At the same time, responsibility for the blunder was said to extend beyond the CIA. Describing a targeting process that has numerous levels of review built into it, government officials said members of the Joint Staff, the U.S. European Command and NATO all signed off on the target after failing to detect that the address they were given was wrong.
"They all have a variety of means of checking on a proposed target, and none of them seemed to come up with an objection to this one," said one official with knowledge of the incident.
The erroneous B-2 bomber attack, which dropped several satellite-guided bombs on the embassy, killing four people and injuring 20 others, marked the latest in about a dozen strikes that have gone awry during the 6½ weeks that NATO has been pummeling Yugoslavia from the air. The mistakes have had varying causes, with no evidence of any pattern, officials said yesterday.
But they all have involved U.S. aircraft. And while the incidents amount to only a minuscule percentage of the more than 18,000 combat missions flown and 9,000 bombs and missiles fired, NATO officials from several countries acknowledged that the succession of accidents is having a damaging effect on public confidence in some alliance countries.
Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO's top military commander, yesterday reaffirmed his confidence in the target selection process. He termed the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy "an anomaly" and insisted the allied air campaign would continue to intensify, although there were no new attacks on sites in Belgrade yesterday.
"We're not going to let an incident like this deter us from doing what we think is right and necessary," the four-star American general said on ABC's "This Week." He called NATO's effort "the most precise, effective and collateral damage-free air operation ever conducted."
Unlike previous mishaps that involved pilot error or weapon malfunction, the attack on the Chinese Embassy stemmed from faulty targetting information provided by the CIA and uncorrected by defense authorities, officials said. The bombs hit exactly where they were programmed to go, but the instructions were wrong.
Officials said the CIA had been gathering information about the Yugoslav supply and procurement directorate for years, focusing on arms deals. The headquarters of the directorate is a block or two south of the Chinese embassy and is on the same street, Tresnja Tveta.
The embassy was opened there three or four years ago. The map used by the CIA was prepared by the Pentagon's National Imagery and Mapping Agency at a time when China's embassy was in downtown Belgrade, miles from its current site.
Behind the embassy is a large, low building resembling a warehouse. This appears on the earlier map and may have been mistaken for the directorate. In any case, administration officials said yesterday that the CIA, in listing the directorate for attack, thought it was providing the coordinates not for a warehouse but for the directorate's headquarters.
Military authorities at the Pentagon and in Europe, responsible for most of the target planning, then scrutinized the neighborhood around the site, assessing the potential for civilian casualties in the event something went wrong. But they worked from overhead photos of the vicinity, not from maps, officials said.
It was not evident from the pictures that the proposed target was an embassy, said one official involved in the process. With vacant lots surrounding the site, defense authorities concluded that the prospect of unintended damage to other properties was worth the risk.
"There are double- and triple-check procedures," the NATO official said. Even so, no one apparently sought to verify that the site was what the CIA said it was.
The official noted that any recent tourist map of the Yugoslav capital shows the Chinese embassy at its current location. In fact, the official added, a number of U.S. diplomats had attended social functions at the new Chinese Embassy in recent years, including the defense attache, whose job it is to provide the Defense Intelligence Agency with up-to-date maps of the city.
This is not the first time in recent months that an incomplete U.S. defense map played a part in a military air accident resulting in the deaths of civilians. Marine Corps aviators, whose jet cut the wire of a cable car in Italy in February 1998 and sent 20 people plunging to their deaths, also were found to have been flying with a map that bore no sign of the cable.
In a joint statement issued late Saturday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and CIA Director George J. Tenet acknowledged that "faulty information led to a mistake in the initial targeting" of the Chinese embassy. "In addition, the extensive process in place used to select and validate targets did not correct this original error."
But the two officials concluded that "a review of our procedures has convinced us that this was an anomaly that is unlikely to occur again."
In remarks yesterday, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea and other alliance officials repeatedly turned aside questions about whether anyone might be dismissed or reprimanded for the planning failures that led to the embassy bombing. Asked also about earlier bombing mishaps, several senior Pentagon officials said they knew of no disciplinary proceedings being brought against any of the aircrews involved and doubted such action would be warranted.
The Pentagon has yet to provide a full accounting of all these previous accidents, which taken together have killed more than 150 civilians, according to Yugoslav media reports.
In early April, when a laser-guided bomb aimed at a telephone exchange in the Kosovo capital of Pristina fell instead on a residential community, officials blamed either a mechanical malfunction in the weapon, or cloud or smoke interference of the laser beam that directed the bomb to its target. Such interference also was cited as the possible reason a bomb, intended for an army barracks in the Serb town of Surdulica on April 27, went astray and hit a housing area.
An attack April 12 on a train crossing a railroad bridge near the Serb town of Grdelica was attributed to the unexpected appearance of the train after a missile was fired at the bridge. The same explanation was given when, on May 1, a U.S. warplane blew up a passenger bus on a bridge 10 miles north of Pristina.
Officials said poor timing in the release of a cluster bomb over the Serb city of Nis last Friday may explain why the bomb, meant for an airfield, ended up blasting a hospital and outdoor market. The attack occurred through cloud cover, which raised some eyebrows at the Pentagon among officers who contend such unguided munitions are best dropped when the pilot can clearly see the target. But the decision to attack in cloudy weather most likely was made by senior commanders, balancing the risk of mistakes against the demands of pursuing the air campaign, officials said.
Graham reported from Washington, Pearlstein from Brussels.

Embassy Attack Is Followed By Defiance Toward NATO (New York Times, May 10, 1999, By Carlotta Gall)
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Chinese demonstrators protesting the bombing of their embassy here held up a banner in the main square of the capital Sunday, where a crowd was gathered for the daily rock concert: "America the loser, Yugoslavia the winner," it read.
That summed up the defiant mood here in Belgrade. Although the bombing of the embassy on Friday night has shocked Serbs and Chinese alike, dashed burgeoning hopes of peace, and fed the fear of living under the threat of airstrikes, it has also convinced many residents that they are being deliberately targeted by NATO, and hardened their determination to resist.
In a series of conversations over the weekend, virtually every Belgrader interviewed seemed convinced that the United States had intended to hit the Chinese Embassy. They gave various reasons: NATO's alleged intention to spark a greater crisis by dragging in China, an attempt by the United States to show its superiority as the world's only superpower, or as part of a cynical campaign to hit more and more civilian targets.
"Would you believe that with all their sophisticated weapons, they can miss?" said a pensioner, Vlade Smiljanic, who was examining bomb damage to government buildings on a main Belgrade street across the Sava River from the New Belgrade district where the Chinese Embassy is located.
"Why did they not bomb the American, German, French and Canadian Embassies along here?" shouted his companion, Djordje. "Just you see, they will hit the Russian embassy next and spark a third world war."
Downtown, in a bookshop cafe where intellectuals gather, the views were the same. "It was a provocation by the United States," said Zoran Arsic, a computer systems manager who was drinking a morning coffee with a friend. "They did it on purpose to show the whole world that they are the only remaining superpower. To say to us: 'How can such a small power do anything, when the U.S. can do this to China,"'
Arsic said he was sure that the latest bombing, the heaviest Belgrade has experienced, signaled NATO's new determination to hit at the civilian population. "Now they are going to bomb by day to scare the people," he said.
The embassy bombing has rattled many people, who are showing the stress of nearly six weeks of on-and-off bombing. They say it was a sign that anything is a target. Saturday night was quiet in the capital, but NATO planes continued their bombing around the country. People in the city are bracing for more.
"This has completely changed our views," said Smiljanic. "Things are worse now. I am more calm but my wife has psychological problems with all the sirens going off again and again. I never go to the bunker, because I am so old it does not matter, but these young girls should go," he said gesturing to a 9-year-old girl on the street.
"They have water in their ears," he said of NATO. "They are disoriented. They don't know what to hit next."
Some Serbian reasoning defies logic. The people can be simultaneously nervous and supremely indifferent, even fatalistic. They are often scared, but few bother to go down to the bunkers at night and almost no one reacts when air raid sirens sound during the day.
Vladan Markovic, a 24-year-old mechanical engineering student, was in his apartment just behind the Chinese Embassy compound when the missiles hit on Friday. "I never felt it that way before," he said. "My knees began to shake. I went to the cellar first, but what should I do there? It is only the old people there."
Many Serbian interpretations of NATO's aims and intentions in this war are wayward, or warped by propaganda and old Communist suspicions.
Bombing people into submission is always senseless, they say, but particularly senseless when it comes to Serbs, because they will resist even harder. "It is the wrong politics of the West," Arsic said. "They do not know our thinking."
But his friend, Misa Popovic, who was drinking coffee with him, countered: "They are very clever. They know how Serbs will resist, because they know we will not be conquered." His reasoning was that the Serbs would fight to the end, and so be destroyed by the West or reduced to slaves, which, he argued, is what the West has wanted all along.
"Now they have shown what their real goal is," Arsic added. "They do not want to allow Yugoslavia to live under its own authority, and they do not want to see Yugoslavia as a partner in business or politics."

Bombing Adds New Strains To Already Tense Ties Between U.S. And China (New York Times, May 10, 1999, Jane Perlez)
WASHINGTON -- The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade has far greater potential to harm an already battered long-term relationship between the United States and Beijing than to frustrate any peace settlement for Kosovo that the United Nations might help broker, administration officials said Sunday.
The accidental bombing by NATO -- which is being portrayed in China as deliberate -- played to one of China's historical sensitivities: humiliation at the hands of foreigners.
With no let-up Sunday in street demonstrations in Beijing against the United States, the administration scrambled to try and persuade the Chinese that it regretted the loss of lives.
Worried that the embassy bombing may strengthen the hands of conservatives in Beijing's secretive leadership, administration officials also emphasized the continuing desire for a "strategic partnership" with China, a relationship already badly frayed over allegations of espionage, and issues of human rights and trade.
President Clinton sent a 1 1/2-page letter to China's President Jiang Zemin Sunday that expressed condolences and set out NATO's cause against Yugoslavia, a White House spokesman said. The letter concluded by saying the president would continue to work on improving the relationship between the two countries, the spokesman said.
To date, however, China has resolutely opposed NATO's bombing, and its controlled media have not reported on the plight of Kosovo's Albanians, but rather on the suffering of Serbs.
Around midnight on Saturday, Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, accompanied by the under secretary of state, Thomas Pickering, went to the Chinese Embassy to speak with Ambassador Li Zhaoxing to express sorrow at the accident, a State Department spokesman said. The secretary, he said, explained to the ambassador that the accident was an "intelligence failure."
How much effect the late-night visit had was not clear.
Appearing on the ABC television program "This Week" Sunday, Li declared that the bombing was a "horrifying atrocity, something rarely seen in the entire history of the worst diplomacy."
Li said the Chinese government was demanding an investigation of the bombing by NATO and after the results of the inquiry would determine what "further actions" to take.
Speaking from the embassy in Beijing on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," America's ambassador to China, James Sasser, said the Chinese government was tolerating or even encouraging the street demonstrations in Beijing, which he called a risky policy.
"You get a sense of widespread indignation within officialdom itself here about this tragic bombing of the Chinese Embassy," he said, even as the demonstrations continued outside his compound. "This is, I think, really a national thought to some extent, and one of our more perceptive foreign service officers here today said, perhaps the Chinese want us to feel their pain."
"This is a major complicating factor in the United States-China relationship," a senior administration official said.
It was probably inevitable, he said, that the bombing would be exploited by the conservative elements in the Beijing government who have been against the more modernizing trends led by Jiang and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji.
On the other hand, the official said, the administration's policy of working toward a "strategic partnership" with China may have shown some dividends in the current crisis.
With personal contacts established between Clinton and Jiang during their visits to each other's countries in the last two years, it was slightly harder for the Chinese to return immediately to the mentality of the Cold War.
But the pressures on the more Western-leaning officials, particularly as China faces the 10th anniversary next month of the killing of hundreds of civilians by the military at the Tiananmen demonstrations, would only mount in the wake of the Belgrade bombing.
"There has been a debate in China mirroring that in the United States in which the military and the hard-liners have accused Prime Minister Zhu of being too soft," said Winston Lord, a former American ambassador to China. "There is the danger that in the coming weeks that those who want to be constructive will be on the defensive. This is going to give ammunition to the hard-liners."
While China, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is needed for any U.N.-brokered resolution of the Kosovo war, the most immediate long-term issue at stake for Washington is China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based body which governs world commerce. China's admission has been going through a rocky phase after the visit of Zhu to Washington last month.
Zhu, who came to the United States with far more concessions on market openings in China than the administration expected, was aggrieved when Clinton failed to sign onto an agreement that would have paved the way for China's entry.
But just before Zhu left the United States, Clinton backtracked somewhat, telephoning the prime minister with a pledge that the United States would back China's membership in the trade organization as long China stood by the major concessions on foreign investment in telecommunications, banking and insurance.
By last week, however, those concessions had been withdrawn, apparently the victim of Chinese government officials who believed Zhu had given away too much to the West. With anti-Americanism now raging in the Chinese media and on the streets of Beijing, these conservative officials could well prevail, a Clinton administration official said.
Even without the bombing of the embassy, the next three weeks are critical in the World Trade Organization process. Clinton faces a June 3 deadline for telling Congress whether he intends to renew China's trading status. If China becomes a member of the trade body, Congress would have to normalize China's trading status, a move that is set to spark a major political brawl for the White House.
On the question of human rights, the administration infuriated Beijing by filing a resolution condemning China's practices at the annual meeting of the United Nations this spring in Geneva.
In the wake of a number of arrests and imprisonments of political dissidents late last year and earlier this year, the recent State Department annual report on human rights around the world was particularly critical of China.
The relationship has also soured over allegations from the U.S. intelligence agencies that China posed an "acute intelligence threat" to nuclear weapons laboratories. A computer scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory has been fired under suspicion of stealing nuclear design secrets for China, although he has not been charged.

China's Leaders Stoke Anger At U.S. At Their Peril (New York Times, May 10, 1999, By Erik Eckholm)
BEIJING -- Through their extended campaign to portray the United States and NATO as evil aggressors in Yugoslavia, and now their endorsement of mass demonstrations involving the unimpeded stoning of the American Embassy here, China's leaders may have unleashed forces that will come back to haunt them.
The extent to which the government has shaped, or been forced to concede to, public passions on the Yugoslavia bombing and NATO's attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is unclear.
But one result of Beijing's policies was obvious in the chants and slogans of this weekend's protests: a revival of nationalistic and anti-American sentiment, which could lead in directions that are dangerous and unpredictable for the reformist regime led by President Jiang Zemin. If these unpent emotions solidify, the effects on Chinese politics and foreign policy will be profound, possibly lending new power to conservative forces in the Communist Party.
Demonstrators have sung the national anthem and shouted for China's pride and against "American imperialism." Such attitudes seem to lurk permanently in the Chinese psyche, right alongside the affection for American culture that seemed so prominent last year when many students -- a prominent faction of the current anti-American protests -- hailed President Clinton as a hero.
Left to fester, that emotional nationalism could spin in unpredictable and dangerous directions, quite possibly turning against Jiang and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and their policies of closer ties with the West and more market economics.
"Chinese nationalism is a very emotional and explosive sentiment that, once aroused, can lead to all sorts of unexpected consequences," said Xiao Gongqin, a historian at Shanghai University.
The current outburst of nationalistic excess, Xiao said, may be simply a shallow and largely passing response to an extraordinary event. But if it grows, he said, "it could encourage China to attempt to return to the past, and it will put Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji under great pressure."
The hand of hard-liners, who are less inclined to develop close ties to the United States or make concessions on, say, foreign access to Chinese markets, could be strengthened. The relative power of a figure like Li Peng, who now heads the national parliament, might grow, and military chiefs who want a stronger response to NATO bombing in Yugoslavia might have a greater voice.
The patriotism expressed this weekend was seldom linked to direct support for the current leaders, who many protesters complained have been ineffectual in doing anything about the NATO crimes they so vociferously condemn.
Some of the cheers in front of the American Embassy on Sunday morning came when a man paraded a large photograph of Mao Tse-tung, the leader who brought on the mass turmoil and suffering of the Cultural Revolution and whose legacy has been largely dismantled since his death in 1976.
"Long Live Mao," scores of people chanted, students and older white-collar workers alike, seeming to revel in a slogan seldom heard in the last 20 years of economic reforms. In truth, few of them would really want to return to the rigid ideology and personal oppressions of Mao's heyday.
Tang Zhenlei, a 30-year-old teacher, explained why he had shouted with the others: "When Chairman Mao was the leader, he would have stood up to America and taken stronger measures," he said. "But now our leaders have been too soft, they're happy to accept an apology from NATO and leave it at that."
"Chairman Mao was willing to stand alone to defend China's dignity," Tang said.
For the current leaders, this was supposed to be the year of no demonstrations, a year of sensitive dates like next month's 10th anniversary of the crushing of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. And a stable China was supposed to broaden its ties with the West and deepen its progress toward a modern market economy.
Instead, last month more than 10,000 members of a spiritual movement held a surprise demonstration on the edge of Zhongnanhai, the inviolable leadership compound in Beijing, and the police saw little choice but to let it proceed.
Then this weekend, after the shock of the embassy attack in Belgrade, the leaders endorsed mass demonstrations around the American and British embassies. Given the anger over NATO's motives that inflammatory propaganda has helped create here, officials may have felt they had little choice but to let people vent their feelings.
By the same token, they cannot be pleased to have watched the student marches spiral almost out of control on Saturday night, as roaming mobs heaved bricks at American Embassy buildings and cars and mockingly defied the riot police. At several points that night, groups of young men formed human wedges and tried to batter their way to the American Embassy through police lines.
In a rare, direct speech to the people televised this evening, Vice President Hu Jintao gave official approval to the demonstrations, saying, in words that were sure to be quoted by democracy advocates: "The Chinese government firmly supports and protects, in accordance with the law, all legal protest activities."
In a characteristically wooden manner, he also seemed to warn against excesses such as Saturday night's burning of the American Consulate in Chengdu. "We believe that the broad masses will, proceeding from the fundamental interests of the nation and taking the overall situation into account, carry out the activities in good order and in accordance with law."
Some Chinese people think that the government intentionally stirred up public opinion over NATO's campaign in Yugoslavia to shift attention from domestic ills and the approaching June 4 anniversary of the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations for democracy.
In an interview Sunday, one person involved in the democracy movement said that by permitting the current large and raucous demonstrations, officials were courting trouble. He quoted a Chinese saying: "He who climbs on a tiger may have trouble getting off."
Even as riot police began to assert more control over the streaming throngs of protesters, the government continued to stoke the flames of public passion, its media and "experts" insisting absolutely that the Belgrade attack had been intentional.
A bitter editorial in the People's Daily, the Communist Party's prime mouthpiece, referred to the "criminal intent of the aggressors" in the embassy bombing and said that NATO now owed the Chinese people a "blood debt."
It is not a far jump from those words to the more lurid slogans voiced by protesters, like "Bomb the White House" and "Blood for blood." But the newspaper's harsh words came from the same political leadership that had staked great status on building a "strategic partnership" with the United States.

Party Uses Belgrade Bombing To Unify Restive Chinese Public (Wall Street Journal, May 10, 1999)
By Matt Forney, Ian Johnson and Marcus W. Brauchli, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
On a pleasant spring day last month, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji came to Washington pledging to mend frayed ties with the U.S. A month to the day later, Mr. Zhu's government was stoking the biggest and most violent anti-U.S. protests here since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.
Beginning Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing was pelted by organized mobs of rock-throwing, flag-burning students, thousands of them bused in by the Communist Party's youth league. Among those holed up inside was Ambassador James Sasser. Consulates in other cities were attacked, too, as police stood by, and in the southwestern city of Chengdu, the consul's residence was torched by a mob later dispersed by police using tear gas. KFC fast-food outlets in some cities and an American-owned hotel in the city of Xian were surrounded by angry, epithet-shouting crowds.
How did things get so bad, so fast?
The proximate cause was outrage at NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, in which three people were killed. President Clinton and other allied leaders expressed deep regret for the incident. Yet Beijing -- which has opposed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's intervention in Yugoslavia from the start -- still hasn't bothered to pass along news of the apologies to its furious population.
In many ways, it's that stark failure -- one facet of a well-oiled state media campaign asserting that NATO intentionally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade -- that is the deeper and more defining cause of the sudden crisis in Sino-U.S. relations. The legacies of propaganda, censorship and state-dictated action loom large in China, no matter how much the country's trillion-dollar economy has modernized or how reformist its leaders often seem. For the Communist Party, maintaining control is priority No. 1, eclipsing smooth diplomatic ties with the U.S., and this weekend's burst of orchestrated fury has rallied Chinese behind their government and its resistance to NATO action in the Balkans.
While NATO insists the targeting of China's Embassy was a "tragic accident," China's propaganda campaign against the U.S. is a deliberate fouling of relations. Sunday night, Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao went on national television to deliver what state media had promised would be an important announcement. Many foreigners expected a call for calm. But while Mr. Hu promised to protect foreign nationals, he also blasted NATO yet again for its "atrocity" and simply urged protesters to obey the law -- a clear signal, many Chinese felt, that they could continue marching on U.S. and other NATO-government missions.
By early this morning, it appeared that the Chinese government had decided it was time to assert a greater measure of control over the protests. Outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the consulate in Shanghai, police were present in full force, some in riot gear, and the streets were quiet. At one point, Ambassador Sasser emerged to inspect the embassy grounds, but he remained within the compound.
Earlier, in a telephone interview with CBS News's "Face the Nation," Mr. Sasser said: "No question that we're hostages here." He also told NBC's "Meet the Press": "I think this demonstration is now exceeding government expectations, and there's always the danger that it's going to get out of control."
From the start, the public's genuine and undoubtedly justified outrage over the Belgrade attack has been abetted by the state. As early as 3 p.m. Saturday, when state newspapers first reported news of the "sneak attack" in Belgrade, police were setting up control lines for protests that were obviously planned. When the students arrived -- in groups representing universities -- they marched to the front of the U.S. Embassy or the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, shouted for 15 minutes to half an hour, and then moved on, to be replaced by more-recent arrivals.
The crisis only further strains what already were fragile ties between the U.S. and China, amid congressional allegations that China stole nuclear-weapons secrets and made improper donations to U.S. political parties. Yet the stakes in the relationship are huge. Washington and Beijing have been working hard to seal China's entry into the World Trade Organization, an accession that would open wider the world's biggest emerging market and might curb China's $1 billion-a-week trade surplus with the U.S.
Already, Assistant Secretary of State Stanley O. Roth canceled a planned one-day visit originally scheduled for Monday. And trade negotiators due to arrive in the next two weeks will find the embassy in disarray, assuming it has reopened; except for commercial and information offices in Shanghai, other U.S. missions in China are closed on Monday and Tuesday.
For China's leadership, propaganda is both a way of keeping control and an avenue for losing it. At the moment, fueling nationalism and engendering hostility toward the U.S. is useful in husbanding support for the Communist government. Unemployment, officially low but in fact well over 10% in many places, is rising; the economy, after two decades of 10% growth, has slowed to about 8%, and even that is thought to be exaggerated; and corruption touches nearly every aspect of life.
That has drawn workers' interest in the protests. On Saturday night, a middle-aged man being pushed away from the gates of the U.S. Embassy chancery building -- where hundreds of Chinese usually wait in line to apply for visas -- shouted: "We're all unemployed -- let us get this out of our systems!"
Beijing has seldom allowed people to do that in the decade since it sent in troops to crush pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. But social pressures are clearly on the rise. Only two weeks ago, as many as 30,000 followers of a spiritual movement called Falun Dafa silently surrounded the compound where the Communist Party's top leaders live and work in central Beijing, demanding that the government legally register their practice. State-run media condemned the demonstration as "completely wrong." Last year, small protests sprang up in Beijing after reports that ethnic Chinese were being raped and killed during riots in Indonesia.
That officially sanctioned protests should erupt now, almost exactly a decade after the Tiananmen crackdown, was an irony captured in a slogan chanted outside the U.S. Embassy over the weekend: "Blood debts must be repaid in blood." The last time students shouted that in public here was just after the People's Liberation Army shot hundreds of people around Tiananmen Square who were demanding political reform.
The risk for China now is that the protests will spin out of control. Indeed, some students in Shanghai said officials were restricting who could participate in Sunday's protests. Some diplomats believe the government is hoping that by allowing students to stage sanctioned demonstrations now, they can forestall any antigovernment protests closer to the June 4 anniversary. But it's also possible that government-sponsored protests will mutate into antigovernment protests. There were scuffles between protesters and police in many cities, and raw anger bubbles just beneath the surface.
When a policeman in Shanghai urged a crowd outside the U.S. Consulate to "accommodate" and leave the scene, one man shot back: "They've bombed the Chinese Embassy, how do you want me to 'accommodate?' Are you a Chinese person or not?" The policeman didn't respond.
Such anger is genuine in part because of China's skillful use of history to bind the country together under a common heritage. China recovered Hong Kong from Britain only two years ago after losing it in a war against the British 150 years earlier. European armies periodically raided China, and marauding Japanese troops occupied and nearly conquered China during World War II. The notion that a powerful China must overcome its humiliating past as the "sick man of Asia" is deeply ingrained by Communist-sanctioned history and journalism.
But it isn't just history that has an official cast; it's also the present. With limited access to a free press, most Chinese depend on institutions such as the state-run Xinhua News Agency, one of whose correspondents was among the three Chinese reporters killed by the NATO attack. If their deaths triggered the weekend protests, reports carried by their employers laid the groundwork for popular anger by portraying NATO as a band of fascist countries bent on conquering a poor and innocent Yugoslavia.
State media here haven't reported on atrocities committed against Kosovars by the government in Belgrade. Beijing offered a simple explanation for the NATO action: The alliance wants to dominate the region, it needs an enemy, and Belgrade is it. "It's not just that they killed three Chinese," fumed one student from Beijing Institute of Machinery Industry, who marched to the U.S. Embassy on Sunday. "They've been bombing Yugoslavia for nearly two months. They must apologize to us, of course, but they also must stop the bombing."
Reform-minded Chinese are already worried about backlash. Beijing University student Yu Jie has written several books on the value of individual freedom and the scourge of censorship and corruption. The first was a compendium of "deskdrawer essays" -- works he had completed but couldn't publish until a political warming-up that began in early 1997. "These events will make it harder for people like me, who basically accept Western ideas of democracy and rights," he says.
The demonstrations will affect other areas of policy-making as well. Beijing recently offered significant concessions to join the WTO on terms Washington would agree to -- concessions that would drive many state enterprises out of business. Some powerful ministers have therefore bitterly contested the deal negotiated with Washington. They now may have the upper hand in claiming that China should take a tougher stance.
That could make things tough for Prime Minister Zhu. Even though a political insider in Beijing says the weekend protests had to be sanctioned by the standing committee of the ruling politburo, on which Mr. Zhu sits, both Mr. Zhu and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin had linked their political fortunes to efforts to improve Sino-U.S. relations. As relations sour, they may have to take an even tougher line to protect themselves from more-conservative leaders who never wanted close relations with Washington in the first place.
--Leslie Chang in Shanghai contributed to this article.

Kosovo : une intervention terrestre aggravera la situation, selon Pékin (AFP, 20/4/99)
   La Chine qui n'a cessé de réclamer l'arrêt des raids aériens de l'OTAN contre la Yougoslavie a estimé mardi qu'une intervention terrrestre risquait d'aggraver encore la situation dans la région.  "Si l'OTAN envoie des forces terrestres en Yougoslavie, cela aggravera et compliquera encore la situation dans la région" a déclaré le porte parole du ministère des affaires étrangères Sun Yuxi au cours d'un briefing.  Il a ajouté que le gouvernement chinois souhaitait un réglement politique de la crise du Kosovo comme le président Jiang Zemin l'a réitéré à quatre reprises ces dernières semaines, ce qui est "absolument sans précédent" a dit M. Sun.
   Depuis le lancement des raids aériens de l'OTAN contre la Yougoslavie le 24 mars dernier, la Chine n'a cessé de plaider pour l'arrêt immédiat de ceux-ci, estimant qu'ils violent la charte de l'ONU. "Aujourd'hui, la priorité doit être l'arrêt immédiat des actions militaires de l'OTAN contre la RFY", a souligné pour sa part lundi le représentant de Pékin à l'ONU, l'ambassadeur Qin Huasun.  Il a ajouté que Pékin "était opposé à toute solution imposée à la RFY". Selon lui, une solution politique du conflit au Kosovo doit être fondée sur deux principes: respect de la souveraineté et de l'intégrité territoriale de la Yougoslavie et protection des droits légitimes de tous les groupes ethniques au Kosovo. 

La Chine veut jouer un rôle pour dénouer le conflit au Kosovo (AP, 17/4/99)
 La Chine se dit prête à participer à la résolution de la crise au Kosovo, mais rien ne laisse présager un déblocage immédiat, a reconnu vendredi le ministre canadien des Affaires étrangères Lloyd Axworthy. Le Premier ministre chinois Zhu Rongji a préféré rester muet sur cette question devant la presse, répétant que la position chinoise avait maintes fois été évoquée lors de sa visite à Washington. ``Lorsque j'étais aux Etats-Unis, on me posait systématiquement la question, alors je ne vois pas la nécessité de le répéter, ici, aujourd'hui'', a-t-il affirmé à Ottawa, où il poursuivait sa visite officielle. Pour sa part, le Premier ministre canadien Jean Chrétien s'est davantage avancé. Il a précisé qu'il avait discuté avec son homologue chinois de la ``possibilité de faire des progrès aux Nations unies et au Conseil de sécurité'' sur la question du Kosovo. M. Axworthy a lui aussi procédé à un échange de vues avec son collègue chinois Tang Jiaxuan. ``Nous avons essayé de voir comment nous pourrions utiliser les Nations unies. J'ai tenté d'encourager la Chine à appuyer toute proposition qui comprendrait la création d'une force internationale'', a expliqué le ministre canadien. Il souhaite que la Chine renonce à son veto au Conseil de sécurité lorsque viendra le moment de soumettre ce dossier à
l'Assemblée générale de l'ONU. En tant que membre permanent du Conseil de sécurité, la Chine a ``un rôle important à jouer'',
a-t-il souligné. Zhu Bangzao, porte-parole du chef de la diplomatie chinoise, a de son côté déclaré que la Chine appuierait ``toute proposition ou action susceptible de déboucher sur une solution politique par le biais de pourparlers''. Avant d'en arriver là, a-t-il dit, l'OTAN doit cesser ses bombardements.  ``Nous pensons que le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies doit jouer un rôle'', a-t-il poursuivi. ``Nous pensons qu'il s'agit d'un principe valable. Pour les détails, il faudra poursuivre les discussions. La solution doit comprendre les deux points que nous avons soulevés, à savoir le respect de la souveraineté et de l'intégrité territoriale de la Yougoslavie et la protection des droits légitimes de tous les groupes ethniques, y compris ceux des Albanais.'' M. Zhu a ajouté que la Chine avait été très ``prudente'' jusqu'ici. Il n'a pu dire si la Chine renoncerait à son veto au Conseil de sécurité. ``Ce n'est pas possible de prédire si nous utiliserons notre veto ou non'', a-t-il expliqué. ``Aucune motion n'est sur la table.'' 

Russia's Role (Washington Post,April 8, 1999)
By Celeste A. Wallander
Increasingly, discussion of options to salvage the disastrous policy on Kosovo has turned to a ground force intervention. Should the United States decide it must stop the humanitarian crisis it has helped to create, it will face a major obstacle to such a mission. Intervention without Russian participation will lack legitimacy and is likely to be the final blow against meaningful Russian security cooperation with the West for a long time. Somehow, a way must be found to end this crisis through cooperation with Russia.
Circumvention of the U.N. Security Council in order to launch airstrikes against Yugoslavia unilaterally and solely on NATO's terms was a mistake. Even for Russia's liberal and moderate elites who do not buy sinister interpretations of NATO's continued existence after the Cold War, an alliance that excludes Russia has a negative image as a council of great powers. Many Russians have warned that NATO expands its military capabilities to be able to dictate political terms on weaker states, including Russia.
But by excluding Russia from the single most important decision about European security that has been made since the end of the Cold War, NATO and the West have severely undermined support in Russia for security cooperation.
So far, Russia has said that it will continue to cooperate in important security issues, especially for nuclear nonproliferation and arms control. But the West should not believe that Russia has an unconditional interest in cooperation. In particular, a unilateral NATO occupation of Kosovo would substantiate the Russian security elite's wildest fear: that the United States means to use a restructured and expanded NATO to revise borders wherever it sees fit in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This would convince even Russia's moderate leadership that multilateral security cooperation has no future.
The implication would be for Russia to rely only upon its own military power, rather than what it sees as one-sided cooperation. Russia's decision to send a reconnaissance ship, and possibly warships, to the Adriatic is a sign that Russian policy is moving in this direction. If cooperation with NATO is precluded, Russia will fall back upon whatever instruments of traditional military power it can still manage in its weakness.
The urgent need to occupy, and probably partition, Kosovo is clear. A solution to the crisis has gone far beyond what peacekeeping forces can accomplish, and the international community is going to have to impose a settlement.
Yet this responsibility belongs not to NATO alone. An undertaking of this scale requires the active participation of all Europe's great powers. By its geopolitical position, its economic potential over the long term and its overall military capability, Russia is one of Europe's great powers. It is in NATO's interests that the settlement of the Kosovo crisis be done in cooperation with Russia, under authority of the Security Council. Only in this way will the military mission and the political settlement have the international legitimacy they need.
Is Russian cooperation with NATO possible even now? Yes, because Russia's stake in the crisis has little to do with Serbia and everything to do with Russia's role in European security. Russian objections are not to the use of force per se but to the use of force by NATO, unconstrained by the United Nations and without regard to Russia.
For its part, Russia's security elite has to accept that a humanitarian crisis exists and stop making excuses for Milosevic: Without agreement on this common purpose no basis exists for a great power solution.
An international occupation to partition Kosovo and restore its Albanian population could achieve active Russian support and Russian military participation. While not as modern or as successfully reconstituted for post-Cold War missions as NATO forces, Russian military forces are capable of traditional missions of territorial control and defense and would reduce the need for large numbers of American ground forces. Intervention with Russia also will be more effective in containing Serbia. By participating on the ground, Russia can reassure itself and its domestic critics that the settlement is being implemented as agreed among the great powers. By involving the Russian military, NATO and Russia can build on the positive experience of the Russian military in Bosnia.
It is a serious mistake not to see the difference between a Russia that cannot do anything to stop us and a Russia that actively cooperates in the areas of security that most engage American national interests. As we move to the post-post-Cold War world, America's leaders should remember that cooperation ended the Cold War.
The writer is associate professor of government at Harvard.

Les mouvements de porte-avions américains laissent un vide naval en Asie (AFP, 4/4/99)
La décision du Pentagone d'envoyer dans le Golfe le porte-avions USS Kitty Hawk, qui est stationné au Japon, laisse
un vide naval dans le Pacifique-ouest à un moment de regain de tension sur la péninsule coréenne, constatent les analystes. Le Kitty Hawk, basé à Yokosuka (Japon), doit en effet rejoindre le Golfe à la place du porte-avions USS Theodore Roosevelt qui restera en mer Méditerranée où il participera à partir de lundi à l'opération "Force alliée" contre la Yougoslavie, a indiqué samedi le Pentagone.   Le Roosevelt était en route pour le Golfe afin de relever l'USS Enterprise, dans le cadre d'une rotation normale, mais M. Cohen a décidé d'envoyer le Kitty Hawk à sa place.   "Afin de maintenir l'engagement américain dans la région du
Pacifique-ouest, (le secrétaire à la Défense William) Cohen a ordonné le déploiement d'une escadrille d'avions F-15E, d'un groupe de combat naval, des B-52s et des avions de guerre électronique EA-6Bs qui seront en alerte aux Etats-Unis, prêts à être rapidement déployés, si nécessaire", a toutefois déclaré le porte-parole du Pentagone Kenneth Bacon.

Milo nouveau Tito pour Pékin qui dépeint Clinton en Hitler (Reuters, 4/4/99)
 Les organes de presse chinois ont retrouvé les accents de la guerre froide pour présenter le conflit de Yougoslavie comme un bras de fer entre Slobodan Milosevic, présenté comme un "nouveau Tito" et un Bill Clinton caricaturé en Une du Yangcheng Evening News sous les traits d'Adolf Hitler. Ce journal contrôlé par le gouvernement assure que le président yougoslave est "considéré par nombre de compatriotes comme un homme de fer qui ose tenir tête aux grandes puissances, une personnalité intraitable qui ne plie pas devant l'Occident et un héros populaire qui n'a qu'à lever le petit doigt pour que sa nation le suive". La Chine, alliée traditionnelle de la Yougoslavie depuis la création dans les années 1960 de Mouvement des non alignés, a, dès le début des frappes de l'Otan contre Belgrade, exprimé son opposition à cette action. Cet litige entre Pékin et Washington, depuis le début des frappes de l'Otan, mercredi, est de nature à susciter de nouvelles tensions dans les relations bilatérales à 48 heures d'une visite aux Etats-Unis du Premier ministre chinois Zhu Rongji.

Le Premier ministre chinois évoque les risques de "guerre mondiale" (AFP, 3/4/99)
Le Premier ministre chinois Zhu Rongji s'est élevé, à propos de l'intervention de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie, contre les interventions dans les affaires intérieures d'un pays, estimant que cela risquait de mener à une "guerre mondiale".   "C'est le pays concerné qui doit régler tous ses conflits internes et si nous refusons de reconnaître la souveraineté d'un pays, je crains que cela ne puisse mener à une guerre mondiale", a déclaré M. Zhu dans une interview accordée à Pékin au Globe and Mail, et publiée samedi à
Toronto.   Cette interview a été accordée à la veille d'un voyage de deux semaines de M. Zhu en Amérique du nord, qui commence mardi en Californie pour se terminer le 20 avril au Canada.   Le Premier ministre, qui a demandé une cessation immédiate des
attaques aériennes, a affirmé que la Chine "respecte les droits de l'Homme" mais qu'on ne peut pas ne pas tenir compte de la souveraineté d'un pays. "Si l'on autorise l'interventionnisme militaire dans toutes les affaires intérieures, telles que le respect des droits de l'Homme dans un pays, cela constituera un très mauvais précédent dans le monde", a-t-il ajouté. M. Zhu a fait valoir que ce principe de non-intervention valait aussi pour le Tibet et Taiwan, ou pour des problèmes comme ceux du Québec et
du Canada ou de la Grande-Bretagne et de l'Irlande du Nord.   "Nous n'avons pas de tribunal mondial ni de police mondiale, donc qui peut prendre la décision de faire usage de toute cette force militaire ?", a demandé M. Zhu.   M. Zhu a par ailleurs critiqué les plans américains d'installer en Asie du sud-est un bouclier anti-missile pour protéger le Japon et Taiwan.   "Nous sommes opposés à l'inclusion de Taiwan dans ce bouclier, et si cela se faisait cela créerait un grand danger", a dit le Premier ministre. "Cela constituerait une interférence, une violation de la souveraineté chinoise", a-t-il précisé.   Il a fait valoir en outre que selon lui le projet de mettre en place un tel bouclier n'était "pas conforme aux traités internationaux sur les missiles". "Cela ne servirait pas la paix dans le monde, mais bien plutôt enclencherait une course aux armements", a-t-il affirmé.   M. Zhu a indiqué encore qu'il avait failli annuler sa visite aux Etats-Unis, la semaine prochaine, à la suite des bombardements en Yougoslavie et du sentiment anti-chinois qui prévaut actuellement aux Etats-Unis. Il a reconnu qu'il y avait peu de chances que lors de ce voyage la Chine signe un accord pour son entrée dans l'Organisation mondiale du commerce, la Maison Blanche y paraissant selon lui "peu
disposée" du fait de pressions émanant notamment du Congrès.   Il a en revanche estimé que la partie canadienne de son voyage, du 14 au 20 avril, ce serait comme "rentrer à la maison", même s'il s'attend à des manifestations.

La Chine considère que l'OTAN a violé la charte des Nations unies (AP, 28/3/99)
 Le président chinois a déclaré aux autorités autrichiennes dimanche que les bombardements de l'OTAN sur la Yougoslavie constituaient ``une violation de la charte des Nations unies'' et ``une interférence dans les affaires intérieures d'un Etat souverain'', selon le porte-parole du ministère chinois des affaires étrangères, Zhu Bangzao. La crise du Kosovo figurait au menu des discussions entre le président Jiang Zemin et son homologue autrichien Thomas Klestil. M. Jiang est arrivé samedi à Vienne, ultime étape d'une tournée européenne.

La Chine et la Russie condamnent les frappes de l'OTAN (AP, 25/3/99)
 Alors que la majorité des pays européens et asiatiques ont apporté leur soutien aux frappes de l'OTAN contre la Yougoslavie, la Russie et la Chine ont critiqué jeudi l'option militaire et demandé la réouverture des négociations sur le Kosovo. L'Indonésie, le Vietnam, la Thaïlande, l'Irak, l'Iran et le Vatican ont condamné eux aussi les frappes. Le Japon, Singapour, l'Australie et la Nouvelle Zélande ont apporté leur soutien à l'OTAN, tandis que les Philippines refusaient de prendre position. .. Sur la même ligne, la Russie a exigé l'arrêt immédiat de l'opération ``Force déterminée'' et demandé que le Conseil de sécurité de
l'ONU adopte dès jeudi une résolution allant dans ce sens. Boris Eltsine a néanmoins fait savoir que la Russie avait décidé de ne pas recourir à la force contre l'OTAN et qu'elle entendait poursuivre ses efforts pour trouver une issue pacifique à la crise. Autre membre permanent du Conseil de sécurité, la Chine a appelé à un arrêt immédiat des opérations de l'OTAN. En visite officielle en Suisse, le président Jiang Zemin a souligné que la situation au Kosovo et dans les Balkans n'avait fait qu'empirer après les dernières actions militaires. ... Les pays d'Asie et d'Océanie ont réagi de façon contrastée. Le Premier ministre australien, John Howard, a expliqué que le refus du président yougoslave Slobodan Milosevic de retirer ses troupes du Kosovo justifiait pleinement la réaction de l'OTAN. Et à Tokyo, le Premier ministre Keizo Obuchi a qualifié les frappes de ``mesure inévitable pour empêcher une tragédie humanitaire''. Mais l'Indonésie et le Vietnam ont condamné les bombardements de l'OTAN. ...

Kosovo : Pékin sur la même longueur d'onde que Moscou
PEKIN, 24 mars 1999, 10 h 42 (AFP) - La Chine a durci le ton face aux pays occidentaux, s'alignant de plus en plus sur la position russe à propos du Kosovo, pour contrebalancer l'influence croissante des Etats-Unis sur la scène internationale, estiment mercredi les analystes.
"Pékin ne peut accepter un élargissement graduel du champ d'action de l'OTAN et une diminution croissante du role du Conseil de
sécurité de l'ONU" relève un diplomate occidental à Pékin.
"Toute action militaire contre la République Fédérale de Yougoslavie sans autorisation du Conseil de sécurité constituerait une
grave violation de la Charte des Nations Unies et des principes établis du droit international" a pour sa part estimé l'ambassadeur
de Chine à l'ONU Qin Huasun, peu après l'annonce mardi par l'OTAN de sa décision de lancer des frappes aériennes contre la
Yougoslavie.
Il a ajouté qu'en sa qualité de président du Conseil de Sécurité, il avait informé par lettre les quatorze autres membres du Conseil
"de la possibilité d'une réunion du Conseil n'importe quand à partir de maintenant".
La Chine n'a cessé, au cours des derniers jours, de répéter son opposition de principe à toute intervention militaire en Yougoslavie
et d'appeler les pays occidentaux à privilégier une solution politique au problème du Kosovo.
Mais au delà de cette position de principe, la Chine admet désormais de plus en plus ouvertement son inquiétude face à un
développement du rôle de l'OTAN, une organisation qui, selon elle, aurait dû être dissoute après la fin de la guerre froide.
Selon une source diplomatique européenne, des officiels chinois auraient récemment reproché en privé aux Européens de "faire le
jeu des Américains" en acceptant de court-circuiter le Conseil de Sécurité sur le Kosovo. "Les Chinois mettent l'accent sur le
partenariat stratégique étroit qu'ils entretiennent avec Moscou sur la question du Kosovo, mais également sur l'OTAN" ajoute la
même source.
Malgré l'absence d'enjeux directs pour Pékin, la situation au Kosovo est suivie très étroitement par la presse officielle chinoise qui
a rapporté fidèlement le moindre développement intervenu ces derniers jours et en particulier toutes les prises de position russes.
"Un certain nombre de pays dont la Russie et la Chine s'opposent fermement à la possibilité d'une intervention militaire au Kosovo"
relevait mercredi l'agence Chine Nouvelle dans un article mentionnant également la possibilité d'une révision de l'attitude de
Moscou face à l'OTAN, voire même d'une éventuelle aide militaire russe à la Yougoslavie en cas de frappes aériennes.
La Russie a signé en mai 1997 un Acte fondateur avec l'Alliance atlantique qui régit sa coopération avec cette organisation et s'est
notamment traduit par la mise en place d'un Conseil conjoint dont le rôle est consultatif. Elle est également membre du Partenariat
pour la Paix auquel elle a adhéré en juin 1994.
L'élargissement de l'OTAN à l'est mais surtout les premières manoeuvres militaires occidentales au Kazakhstan en septembre
1997 dans le cadre du Partenariat de la paix ont donné des sueurs froides à Pékin, qui estime qu'il s'agit d'une intrusion directe
dans sa zone naturelle d'influence, estiment les experts diplomatiques.
Mais les autorités chinoises redoutent également que l'intervention militaire de l'OTAN au Kosovo au nom de l'urgence humanitaire
ne constitue un précédent et que sous prétexte de violations des droits de l'homme ou de tout autre motif, les Etats-Unis puissent
un jour décider d'intervenir en Chine.
Le problème du Kosovo, a rappelé mardi le porte parole du ministère chinois des Affaires étrangères Sun Yuxi, constitue "une
affaire intérieure de la République fédérale yougoslave". La Chine, a-t-il ajouté, considère que le problème doit être réglé "par le
dialogue sur la base du respect de la souveraineté et de l'intégrité territoriale de la Yougoslavie tout en sauvegardant les droits et
les intérêts légitimes des différents groupes ethniques au Kosovo".

Le gouvernement japonais exhorte ses ressortissants à quitter la Yougoslavie (AP, 24/3/99)
TOKYO (AP) -- Le gouvernement japonais a exhorté mercredi ses ressortissants qui se trouvent en Yougoslavie à quitter le pays
pour échapper à d'éventuelles frappes aériennes de l'OTAN.
Les Japonais qui souhaitent quitter la Yougoslavie pourront le faire en profitant d'un bus qui partira dans la journée de mercredi
pour Budapest, la capitale hongroise, a annoncé le ministère japonais des Affaires étrangères dans un communiqué.
Des évacuations similaires ont eu lieu lundi et mardi. Selon le ministère, il reste 60 Japonais en Yougoslavie, dont 11 journalistes.

L'Australie apporte son soutien aux frappes aériennes de l'OTAN (AP, 24/3/99)
CAMBERRA, Australie (AP) -- Le gouvernement australien a apporté mercredi son soutien diplomatique total aux frappes
aériennes de l'OTAN et a exhorté les Australiens qui se trouvent en Yougoslavie à quitter immédiatement le pays.
Le ministre des Affaires étrangères australien Alexander Downer a estimé que l'ordre des frappes aériennes était regrettable, mais
compréhensible. ``Nous comprenons la nécessité de cette action'', a-t-il déclaré à Camberra. ``La responsabilité de cette situation
tragique revient entièrement à M. Milosevic et à son gouvernement''.
L'Australie a retiré son personnel gouvernemental à Belgrade et a conseillé à quelque 5.000 Australiens qui se trouvent en
Yougoslavie à quitter immédiatement le pays.

L'Azerbaïdjan propose de participer aux forces de l'OTAN (AP, 25/3/99)
L'Azerbaïdjan souhaite participer avec des troupes à un éventuel déploiement d'une force de maintien de la paix de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie, rapporte la presse jeudi. Le ministère des affaires étrangères a proposé, dans une lettre au département d'Etat américain, de fournir 30 soldats à toute force de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie, rapporte l'agence russe Interfax, citant des diplomates à Bakou. L'Azerbaïdjan offre d'associer ses soldats à un éventuel bataillon turc. Cette proposition risque de fâcher la Russie, fermement opposée à l'intervention de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie, et qui tente de maintenir son influence sur l'ex-république soviétique.

La Russie prépare sa réponse à l'annonce des frappes de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie (AP, 24/3/99)
MOSCOU (AP) -- La Russie va renforcer le niveau d'alerte de son armée et ``répondra en conséquence'' si l'OTAN attaque la
Yougoslavie, a déclaré mercredi le ministre russe de la Défense Igor Serguéïev, alors que le Kremlin préparait sa réponse à
l'annonce de l'Alliance atlantique.
De son côté, le Premier ministre, de retour à Moscou après avoir annulé sa visite aux Etats-Unis et fait demi-tour au-dessus de
l'Atlantique, a estimé que ``les frappes n'aideront pas à stabiliser la situation au Kosovo''. ``Au contraire, cela sera déstabilisant,
nos relations avec les Etats-Unis en seront affectées, tout comme la stabilité en Europe'', a ajouté Evguéni Primakov.
C'est le vice-président Al Gore qui a prévenu M. Primakov dans son avion de l'imminence des frappes. ``J'ai dit à Gore,
'réflechissez encore. Vous n'avez pas pris en compte toutes les conséquences''', a précisé M. Primakov, dont les propos étaient
rapportés par l'agence ITAR-Tass.
Le Premier ministre devait s'entretenir dans la journée avec le président Boris Eltsine pour mettre au point la réponse de Moscou.
``Il est prématuré de parler des mesures que nous allons prendre'', déclarait dans la matinée le chef de la diplomatie Igor Ivanov
said. ``C'est à Boris Eltsine (...) de prendre ces mesures''.

Pékin met son veto à la force de l'ONU en Macédoine (AFP, 25/2/99)
La Chine a mis jeudi son veto à la reconduction d'une force des Nations Unies en Macédoine bien que de nombreux pays aient averti que cette décision risquait d'accroître la déstabilisation des Balkans. Pékin a mis son veto à un projet de résolution prolongeant de six mois le mandat de la Force de prévention de l'ONU (FORDEPRENU) pour punir Skopje d'avoir établi des liens diplomatiques avec Taïwan. Lors d'une séance formelle du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU, la Russie s'est abstenue et les treize autres membres ont voté en faveur de l'extension du mandat. Il s'agit seulement de la quatrième fois que Pékin utilise son droit de veto depuis 1971, date à laquelle le régime communiste a remplacé Taïwan au siège de la Chine à l'ONU. Cette décision signifie que les 1.050 hommes de la force, dont 360 Américains, doivent plier bagage à partir de dimanche, à l'expiration de l'actuel mandat. Le représentant américain à l'ONU, Peter Burleigh, a déclaré qu'"en ce moment le rôle de la FORDEPRENU est indispensable". Il a ajouté que les Etats-Unis voulaient en conséquence étudier immédiatement avec leurs partenaires du Conseil le moyen de "continuer à répondre à ce besoin, sans interruption". La principale mission de cette force était d'empêcher le conflit dans l'ex-Yougoslavie de déborder en Macédoine. La FORDEPRENU est présente depuis 1995 dans ce pays où elle a succédé à une précédente force de l'ONU déployée en 1992.
Aujourd'hui, elle avait surtout pour rôle d'éviter que le conflit dans la province serbe séparatiste du Kosovo ne s'étende à la Macédoine, voisine à la fois de l'Albanie et du Kosovo, et qui compte dans sa population quelque 30% d'Albanais de souche. Un des scénarios évoqués par les diplomates pour éviter le départ de la force serait de la faire passer -- au moins partiellement -- sous le drapeau de l'OTAN ou de l'Organisation pour la sécurité et la Coopération en Europe (OSCE). Le secrétaire général de l'ONU, Kofi Annan, envisage cette possibilité en déclarant que la Macédoine et ses voisins devraient peut-être adopter une "nouvelle approche" en "consultation avec les organisations régionales". Au nom des Européens, l'ambassadeur d'Allemagne Dieter Kastrup, a lui aussi affirmé qu'"il existe un danger réel que la crise du Kosovo déborde sur les pays voisins" alors que les belligérants n'ont pas encore fait la paix. Il a dit espérer qu'un "arrangement pourra être trouvé dans les prochains jours". Le représentant de la Macédoine, Naste Calovski, a plaidé pour le maintien de l'ONU en raison du conflit au Kosovo. "La possibilité d'une nouvelle guerre sanglante dans les Balkans doit être prise au sérieux", a-t-il dit en soulignant que "l'ONU ne devait pas abandonner la région". Quant à l'ambassadeur du Canada, Robert Fowler, qui préside le Conseil, il a affirmé que la décision de Pékin "qui semble dictée par des considérations bilatérales qui n'ont rien à voir avec la FORDEPRENU, représente une utilisation malheureuse et inappropriée du droit de veto".
Celui-ci est l'apanage des seuls membres permanents du Conseil (Chine, Etats-Unis, France, Grande-Bretagne, Russie). Selon les diplomates, le veto de Pékin était dicté à la fois par son opposition de principe à la force de l'ONU et par sa volonté de protester contre l'établissement le 27 janvier de liens diplomatiques entre Skopje et Taïwan. L'ambassadeur de Chine, Qin Huasun, a simplement assuré qu'il "n'y a pas de nécessité de prolonger le mandat" de la force de l'ONU et que les ressources qui lui sont attribuées seraient mieux utilisées à régler les conflits en Afrique.

Pékin opposé à des frappes aériennes en Yougoslavie (AP, 21/2/99)
La Chine s'oppose à toute action militaire de l'OTAN en Yougoslavie en cas d'échec des pourparlers de paix sur le Kosovo, a annoncé dimanche un porte-parole des Affaires étrangères. La Chine, qui s'est toujours opposée à des frappes aériennes, estimant que la guerre au Kosovo est une affaire intérieure yougoslave, veut une solution pacifique ``sur la base du respect de l'intégrité territoriale et de la souveraineté de la Yougoslavie'', selon l'agence Chine Nouvelle qui rapporte les propos de la porte-parole Zhang Qiyue.

PARIS (AP) -- Chronologie des principaux événements liés à la crise du Kosovo:

-1968: premières manifestations au Kosovo en faveur de l'indépendance

-1974: la Constitution yougoslave déclare que le Kosovo est une province autonome au sein de la Serbie

-1980: mort du maréchal Tito

-1981: nouvelles manifestations pour réclamer que le Kosovo devienne une République; des dizaines de blessés

-1989: Slobodan Milosevic, alors président de la Serbie, supprime le statut d'autonomie du Kosovo; de violentes manifestations
font plus de 20 morts

-1990: la Yougoslavie envoie des troupes pour reprendre le contrôle de la province; la Serbie dissout le gouvernement du Kosovo

-1991: les séparatistes albanophones proclament une République du Kosovo, qui est reconnue par l'Albanie voisine

-1992: Ibrahim Rugova, qui souhaite parvenir à l'indépendance par la voie pacifique, est élu ``président'' de cette République
auto-proclamée

-1996: l'Armée de libération du Kosovo (UCK, indépendantiste) se fait connaître en revendiquant la responsabilité de plusieurs
attentats à la bombe contre des cibles policières

1998

-28 février: deux policiers serbes tués par des militants albanais du Kosovo; vaste opération de représailles des forces serbes

-mars: une opération de la police spéciale serbe contre des séparatistes présumés fait des dizaines de morts

-avril: les Serbes rejettent à 95% par référendum l'idée d'une médiation internationale pour le Kosovo; nouvelles sanctions
internationales contre la Yougoslavie

-mai: premières discussions Milosevic-Rugova; mais à la suite d'un regain de violence dans la province, la partie kosovare se retire

-juillet/août: l'UCK prend le contrôle de 40% de la province, avant d'être défaite lors d'une contre-offensive serbe

-septembre: les forces serbes attaquent des villages dans la régions de Drenica; 22 albanophones retrouvés massacrés dans le
centre du Kosovo; une dizaine d'autres auraient subi le même sort; résolution du Conseil de sécurité appelant à un cessez-le-feu
immédiat et à un dialogue politique

-octobre: l'OTAN autorise le principe de frappes contre des cibles militaires serbes; après des négociations avec l'émissaire
américain Richard Holbrooke, le président yougoslave Slobodan Milosevic accepte de retirer ses troupes et de faciliter le retour de
dizaines de milliers de réfugiés; Belgrade accepte aussi le déploiement de 2.000 observateurs non armés de l'OSCE pour vérifier le
respect des engagements

-octobre/décembre: l'émissaire américain Christopher Hill tente d'obtenir un règlement politique; des violences quotidiennes
menacent la trêve

-décembre: 36 combattants de l'UCK tués par les forces yougoslaves; six jeunes serbes tués dans un café; importantes
manifestations serbes; au moins 15 morts dans des combats dans le nord de la province

1999

-15 janvier: 45 albanophones tués près de Racak; demandes internationales en faveur d'une enquête pour crimes de guerre

-29 janvier: la police serbe tue 24 Albanais du Kosovo lors d'une opération dans une cache présumée de l'UCK; les pays
occidentaux somment les deux camps d'assister à une conférence de paix à Rambouillet, près de Paris, sous peine de frappes de
l'OTAN

-2 février: l'UCK accepte de se rendre à Rambouillet

-4 février: la Serbie accepte à son tour de participer à la conférence

-6 février: ouverture de la conférence de Rambouillet avec injonction du Groupe de contact d'aboutir à un accord avant deux
semaines

-19 février: après l'expiration du délai imparti, l'Occident autorise une prolongation de quatre jours. Pendant ce temps, des combats
sporadiques se poursuivent au Kosovo

-23 février: après l'expiration du second délai, un accord de principe est conclu sur le volet politique et les deux parties acceptent
de se revoir lors d'une nouvelle conférence en France à partir du 15 mars

-février/mars: les forces yougoslaves se déploient près de la frontière avec la Macédoine, où sont stationnés des éléments de
l'OTAN, et bombardent également les positions de l'UCK dans le nord. Cette dernière conduit plusieurs contre-attaques

-18 mars: trois jours après la reprise à Paris des pourparlers serbo-kosovars, les Albanophones signent seuls un plan de paix
appelant à une large autonomie de la province et au déploiement de 28.000 soldats de l'OTAN. La délégation serbe refuse de
signer et les pourparlers sont suspendus

-20 mars: les observateurs de l'OSCE évacuent le Kosovo, alors que les forces yougoslaves mène une grande offensive anti-UCK

-21 mars: quatre policiers serbes sont tués à Pristina, alors que des combats embrasent d'autres régions de la province

-22 mars: après un passage au siège de l'OTAN à Bruxelles, Richard Holbrooke se rend à Belgrade où il met en garde Slobodan
Milosevic contre des frappes aériennes si la Yougoslavie ne signe pas l'accord de paix. Mais l'homme fort de Belgrade refuse tout
déploiement de soldats de l'OTAN au Kosovo

-23 mars: après une nouvelle discussion stérile avec Slobodan Milosevic, M. Holbrooke constate l'échec de sa mission. Alors que
la Yougoslavie prononce l'état d'urgence, le secrétaire général de l'OTAN Javier Solana donne son feu vert dans la soirée aux
frappes aériennes de l'Alliance.