Military Madness > Xi visits Belgrade 25 years after NATO bombed Chinese Embassy

 

China sends ‘message to Nato’ with Xi’s visit to

Belgrade embassy bombing site

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• The Chinese leader’s attendance at 25th anniversary commemoration is a ‘subtle signal’ to the US and its Western allies, observers said
• Beijing has repeatedly invoked the embassy’s destruction to attack Washington and the security alliance for trying to contain China’s rise
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Shi Jiangtao

Published: 6:30pm, 7 May 2024

After the 1999 airstrike on the Chinese embassy as part of Nato’s campaign against the former Yugoslavia, protesters marched on the US embassy in Beijing, with banners warning then president Bill Clinton that “those who play with fire get burned”. Photo: AFP

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to join the commemorations of the 25th anniversary of one of the darkest moments in recent US-China ties, at the former site of China’s embassy in Belgrade, which was bombed by Nato forces on May 7, 1999.

Three Chinese journalists were killed in the strike, part of Nato’s military campaign in the former Yugoslavia, setting off a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington as well as the biggest anti-US protests across China in decades.

The US and its Nato allies insisted the “entirely unintended” strike had meant to target a Yugoslav military facility and the embassy had been misidentified in a “tragic mistake”, but many in China – including government officials – remain unconvinced.

Is it possible to make such a colosally stupid mistake? As FDR once stated, "every political event was planned by somebody".

China has maintained close ties with Serbia, since siding with the former Yugoslavia against Nato’s air campaign in the 1990s, and Xi’s anticipated visit – as part of his European tour – will be his second to the site.

During a state visit to Serbia in 2016, Xi visited the location which featured a commemorative plaque, unveiled on the 10th anniversary of the bombing by the mayor of Belgrade and the Chinese ambassador.

Portraits of the three journalists killed in the bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade on display at an exhibition established in Beijing in the weeks after the incident. Photo: Reuters

Zhiqun Zhu, a professor of international relations and director of the China Institute at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, said Xi’s latest visit is highly symbolic and serves two purposes.

The first is intended “primarily for domestic audiences as it helps to boost nationalism at home. The official narrative is that this happened when China was weaker, and now the Chinese should be proud of themselves as the country has become a world power”.

Zhu said the high-profile move to mark the embassy bombing also served as a reminder to Nato of this “historical debt to China”. “And it is a subtle warning that a guilty Nato should not get involved in Chinese affairs, nor should it expand to Asia.”

Beijing has repeatedly invoked the embassy strike in recent years to attack Washington and Nato over their alleged efforts to contain China, as part of the intensifying wrangling with the US and its Western allies.

At a Security Council meeting in March, the Chinese deputy envoy to the United Nations Geng Shuang called the bombing “a flagrant violation of China’s sovereignty” and said Beijing “will never accept such a historical tragedy repeating itself”.

Last month, Geng invoked the incident again, during a speech condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria.

Firemen inspect the heavily damaged Chinese embassy in Belgrade in the wake of the Nato bombing in May 1999. Photo: Reuters

Zhu said that in contrast, the US and other Nato countries are reluctant to talk about the incident and want to downplay it because “they can never convince the Chinese to accept the ‘old map’ explanation” for how the strike occurred.

“If the incident happened today, there would be a major crisis in China-US relations, given the intense rivalry between the two powers, hostility towards China in the US, and strong nationalism in China now,” he said.

China’s reaction in 1999 was relatively restrained, in light of the magnitude of public feeling aroused by the bombing, with mass protests in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shenyang.

In Beijing, protesters laid siege to the US embassy, trapping everyone inside for days until they were called off by the authorities.

China denounced the Belgrade strike as a “barbaric act” and a “severe infringement” on Chinese sovereignty, while then president Jiang Zemin refused to take calls from his US counterpart Bill Clinton for a week, despite the hotline set up in 1997.

Pang Zhongying, a professor of international affairs at Sichuan University, said the 25th anniversary was an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned from 1999, when US-China ties bore some important resemblances to those of today.

“Bilateral ties stood at a historical crossroads and were very fragile, which is somewhat similar to relations at the moment”. The bombing – “a big surprise” – threatened to derail the relationship, on the mend since the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, he said.

At the time, Beijing and Washington were engaged in serious negotiations towards finalising US support for China’s accession to the WTO and the previous months had seen reciprocal state visits by Jiang and Clinton.

US-China conflict ‘unimaginable’ says Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi

Just weeks before the bombing – which Clinton later described as one of the worst setbacks of his presidency – then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji had wrapped up a visit to the US.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the country’s future development was at stake, because an escalation of the diplomatic crisis would not only sabotage ties with the US, it could also jeopardise domestic reforms, as well as China’s WTO accession amid doubts at home about reform and opening up,” Pang said.

“While the incident should be remembered, it should not be commemorated in a high-profile manner, especially when Sino-US relations are still very fragile. It can hardly do any good to the improvement of bilateral ties.”

When Jiang and Clinton finally spoke on May 14, 1999, the US president expressed his regrets and promised an investigation, as well as reaffirming his commitment to normalising relations with China.

While Beijing wanted to show its resolve for a serious political struggle with Washington, it was also concerned about the ramifications – especially on domestic stability in the wake of the protests around the country.

At an internal meeting of the Chinese leadership after the bombing, Jiang set the tone by reportedly saying “we must not only oppose hegemonism, but also develop relations with the US”.

“China will not deviate from its policy of economic development and reform and opening up because of this incident,” he said.

In the months that followed, the talks suspended by Beijing on May 10 resumed, covering the WTO, human rights and military ties. In December, the two sides agreed on compensation, for damage to the Chinese embassy and to US diplomatic missions in China.

Sourabh Gupta, a senior policy specialist with the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said Beijing wanted to send a signal with Xi’s Belgrade visit, that “China might or might not forgive but it will never forget what happened on that fateful day in 1999”.

“That the embassy bombing happened during a military operation, and war, that was neither sanctioned by the UN Security Council nor by the US Congress … [making] the bombing all the more odious, I think Xi’s presence in Belgrade is a fitting remembrance on the 25th anniversary of that incident,” he said.

“The relative restraint stemmed, in my view, from the fact that the Chinese leadership sadly and reluctantly understood that in high likelihood the bombing had been a tragic error – even though it may have been during an illegal war.”

According to Gupta, a key lesson from the embassy bombing was the need for an operational mechanism to ensure open lines of communication in the event of emergencies.

“The two sides need qualitatively better civilian-led crisis communication and management channels to reckon with the day-after essentiality of engaging the other side to talk down and defuse a crisis – particularly an inadvertent and unintended one like the embassy bombing,” he said.

Islam - This Day in History - The Seige of Belgrade 1456

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Islamic Jihad and the Church Bells of Noon: The Siege of Belgrade

07/22/2021 

by Raymond Ibrahim 

Painting of the final battle of Belgrade, with Hunyadi and Capistrano at the fore.

Today in history, on July 22, 1456, the West scored one of its greatest victories over the jihad.

Three years after conquering Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan, Muhammad II, at the head of over 100,000 Turks, marched towards the strategic fortress town of Belgrade, key to Western Europe, in the spring of 1456.

Cognizant of all the death, destruction, and mindboggling atrocities this massive Muslim march presaged—memory of the sack of Constantinople was still fresh—a great panic swept through the Danube region.  Even Hungarian king Ladislaus V fled his capital to Vienna (on the pretext that he was going “hunting”).

Only one stood his ground—only John Hunyadi, the Transylvanian voivode who had long been a thorn in the Turks’ side.  Even as the king fled west, Hunyadi raced to the eastern frontier—towards, not away, from the Turkish army.     He immediately manned the fortress of Belgrade with 6,000 veteran fighters at his own expense.  Although he implored the higher nobles for aid, few were responsive.

Meanwhile, the 70-year-old Franciscan friar, John Capistrano, went to southern Hungary calling on the people to take the cross and defend their nation against Islam. His “burning zeal, soul-piercing eloquence, and heroic austerities” set tens of thousands of the lower classes aflame.  Before long, a massive crusader force of some 40,000 peasants were following Capistrano.

The world had turned upside down: “Where is the French king,” a contemporary document inquires, “who wants to call himself the Christian king?  Where are the kings of England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden…?  Unarmed peasants, blacksmiths, tailors, tradesmen are walking in front of the armies!”

By late June, Muhammad’s vast forces had reached and surrounded Belgrade.  If it fell, all of Hungary and further west would be exposed to and eventually inundated by the hordes of Asia.

Muhammad ordered the heavy bombardment to begin on July 4.  The crashing and careening cannon fire was so thunderously loud that it could be heard for a hundred miles around.  Twelve days later, on July 16, massive breaches punctuated this once formidable fortress.

It was then that Hunyadi’s army appeared, floating down the Danube on makeshift vessels of war.  Marching alongside them by land were Capistrano and his army.  On seeing the puny, Christian fleet nearing their professional galleons, many of which were fettered together by chains and formed a huge damn across the water, the Turks scoffed, even as they braced for the inevitable crash.  On the signal—loud cries of “Jesus! Jesus!”—the Christian flotilla crashed into the chained Muslim boats.

The Danube flowed with hot blood as a savage river battle took place for five hours. The massive linked chains of the Ottoman boats eventually burst asunder, and the Christian fleet made it to and reinforced Belgrade, which was at its final extremity.

A spectacular start for the relief force, it was only a scratch to the vast Muslim army.  On that same day, Ottoman cannons—now living instruments of the sultan’s wrath—exploded in a barrage of fire that rocked Belgrade to its very foundation.

For another week, the cannons continued to thunder, until most of Belgrade’s ramparts were on a level with the ground.  Then, at the crack of dawn, on July 21, for miles around, “one could hear the ceaseless beat of the drums that announced the attack.” Throngs of Muslims came rushing to the dilapidated fortress to cries of “Allah! Allah!”

Once thousands of Turks had crowded in between the crumbling walls and the citadel, the signal was given: to the piercing sound of blasting horns, Hunyadi and his men came charging out of the citadel, even as throngs of hidden peasant crusaders appeared above the walls and behind the Turks.  The Muslims were trapped between a rock and a hard place.  According to one account:

A terrible struggle ensued. The Turks, though taken at an advantage, were as ten to one and armed to the teeth, whilst most of their antagonists were scarcely armed at all. A hand-to-hand melee went on in every street, but the fight was fiercest on the narrow bridge leading from the citadel to the town, where Hunyady commanded in person, and on the bastions, which were defended by crusaders hastily brought across the river on rafts.

Despite being so wildly disadvantaged in numbers and arms, the Christians—including Hunyadi, who fought in their midst like a common foot-soldier—held their own and managed to kill many the Turks.

For their part, the Muslims, who fought “like ravening beasts,” to quote an Ottoman chronicler, “poured out their life’s blood like water in the place of death, and countless heroes tasted the pure honey of a martyr’s death and were caught up into the arms of the houris of paradise.”

It was now just before dawn, July 22; the battle had raged for a day and night, and it was clear that the Christians, having reached the limits of human capacity and endurance, were on the verge of collapsing under the sheer numbers of their foes pouring in.  High up on a watch tower, the 70-year-old Capistrano was seen waving the banner of the Cross and imploring Heaven:

Oh Jesus, where are Thy tender mercies which Thou hast shown to us of old? Oh, come and aid us, and tarry not. Save, oh, save Thy redeemed, lest the heathen say, “Where is now their God ?”

At that point, the Christians, pushed back to the citadel and high places, began to rain down fire on the votaries of Islam.   With all the combustibles they could gather—wood, dried branches, anything that would burn—“and with one accord setting fire thereto,” the defenders “cast them down, mingled with burning pitch and sulphur, both upon the Turks who were in the ditches and upon those who were scaling the walls,” writes one Tagliacotius, who participated in the battle.

After all the shrieks had died out and the smoke cleared, the rising sun slowly revealed the gory aftermath.  All around Belgrade, inside and out, were the dead and dying bodies of countless Muslims—charred beyond all recognition.

[T]he ditches and the whole space between the outer walls and the citadel were filled with their scorched and bleeding corpses. Thousands of them had perished there. The janissaries in particular had suffered so terribly that the survivors of them were thoroughly cowed, while the sultan’s body-guard, which had led the attack, was well-nigh annihilated. So, after a twenty-hours’ combat, the Christian host was able to breathe freely once more.

And yet, in terms of actual casualties, this was but a scratch to the gargantuan Ottoman army that still surrounded Belgrade.  Another assault was expected; and Hunyadi ordered everyone to remain at his post, on pain of death, “lest the glory of the day be turned into confusion.”

By late noon on July 22, however, an unauthorized skirmish between the crusaders and jihadists prompted the former to pour out of Belgrade and take the battle to the Turks.  Seeing that the die had been cast, Hunyadi and his professional men-at-arms rushed to their aid.  By 6 pm, the entire Christian army was fighting outside the ruined walls Belgrade.

In this bedlam, even Sultan Muhammad was espied fighting.  By now, however, the masses of Turks making up his army, who had set off expecting a relatively easy victory, had had enough.  When the fiery Christians managed to capture and turn the blasts of several Ottoman cannons on their former besiegers, demoralization turned into panic, and the Turks, tens of thousands of them, fled, with Sultan Muhammad carried in their midst, “foaming at the mouth with impotent rage,” even as some 50,000 other Turks lay dead before the ruined walls of Belgrade.

It was arguably the worst defeat that Muhammad the Conqueror suffered in his long career of terrorizing Christians (indeed, even the year before he died 25 years later, in 1481, 800 Christians were ritually massacred by his Turks for refusing Islam in Otranto, Italy).

And it is for this victory at Belgrade that church bells ring at noon—a tradition started by Pope Calixtus III to mark the time when a small but devoted force of Christians defied a much larger force of Muslims intent on annihilating them; a tradition that continues to this day, including in older Protestant churches—even if Christians of all denominations have forgotten or been shielded from its significance.