DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON SECTION: CHINA

DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: CHINA
SUBSECTION: GENERAL PART 2
Revised 1/8/01

LA Times 5/3/99 Maggie Farley "....When the time came in early March for the 14 boys and 18 girls to return to Shanghai, they gathered in front of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. Program organizers handed students their plane tickets, shook hands and said goodbye. A sharply dressed Chinese American woman with a black Mercedes was there, helping interpret. Then a fleet of vans driven by Asian men pulled up. They swept up the kids and their bags and sped off, leaving the counselors dumbfounded and frightened. The counselors called police. At first, there was speculation of a mass defection or, more likely, a kidnapping. The teens, after all, were the children of Shanghai's elite: government officials, executives and bankers. Police launched an intensive search. The youths were found 48 hours later, ensconced in host-family homes, waiting to start a second program. The police--reassured by parents in long-distance calls to China--dismissed the melee as confusion between rival schools. It wasn't. Investigations by the U.S. State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service and interviews with the parents indicate that the incident at the airport was a glitch in a sophisticated new immigration ploy--parlaying a short-term student visa into, potentially, a U.S. passport. The parents call it giving their children the best opportunity. The U.S. government calls it "an alien-smuggling conspiracy." But more than anything, it is a story that shows how porous the U.S. immigration law is, and how attractive America remains for Chinese despite a rapidly improving standard of living in their homeland...."

5/7/99 BELGRADE "...One of the people injured in a NATO strike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade Friday night has died, the Yugoslav news agency Beta said Saturday. "One employee of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was killed in the overnight strike on the Chinese embassy building in Belgrade,'' Beta said. The Beta agency added that two more employees were missing. ''It is feared that these two have also been killed,'' it said...."

Washington Post 5/8/99 Daniel Williams "...NATO missiles plowed into the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during a ferocious allied bombardment tonight that also struck the Interior Ministry and army headquarters and again plunged the capital city into darkness. The 26 Chinese staff members who lived in the building were taken to a hospital, and there were conflicting initial reports about the extent of the casualties. The official New China News Agency reported that four people were injured and four others were missing. Yugoslav Foreign Ministry spokesman Nebojsa Vujovic said "there are deaths and injuries," without providing details. The airstrike that hit the embassy seemed likely to complicate Western efforts to secure a diplomatic settlement to the Kosovo conflict and to raise new strains in U.S.-Chinese relations..... Earlier today, NATO cluster bombs struck a residential neighborhood and hospital grounds in Nis, Serbia's third-largest city, killing at least 14 civilians and wounding 30 others. NATO said tonight that it was "highly probable that a weapon went astray and hit civilian buildings" during an attack on a nearby airfield...."
AFP 5/7/99 "...The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting at 11:30 p.m. (0330 GMT) at the rquest of Beijing after a NATO bomb hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, council diplomats said. The independent Beta news agency in Belgrade reported at least one person had been killed in the strike, which Chinese diplomats here called a "barbarian act."

Itar-Tass 5/8/99 "...NATO's missile attack on the Chinese Embassy to Yugoslavia means that the Kosovo Albanians mean nothing to NATO, as they attacked today the embassy of a sovereign state, the Chinese Ambassador told Itar-Tass. Pan Zhanlien emphasized that "China's reaction will be tough". The ambassador also said there were victims among the staff. He could not specify how may people had died. According to the ambassador, the attack on the embassy was targeted, as the building is situated far from industrial or military objects. "That could not have been a pilot's mistake," he said...."

Daily Telegraph, London 5/8/99 David Rennie "...CHINA has launched nationwide curbs on foreign television broadcasts, seizing satellite dishes, raiding cable operators and suspending overseas channels. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation confirmed yesterday that its Phoenix cable channel appears to have been pulled off-air in provinces across China. ....Now official Chinese newspapers have reprinted the 1993 law which bans unauthorised satellite reception, on pain of fines and even imprisonment, and state television has shown illegal dishes and decoders being seized. Telephone hotlines have been set up for citizens to denounce illicit television transmissions...."
Associated Press 5/8/99 NICOLE WINFIELD "....China called an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Saturday to condemn what it called the barbaric ``NATO attack'' on its embassy in Belgrade. The United States expressed regret over the incident but vowed to continue bombing. Chinese Ambassador Qin Huasun circulated a draft statement to the press -- which would eventually have to be agreed upon by the entire council -- that calls for the United Nations to investigate the bombing and for NATO to provide an explanation. China's official Xinhua news agency said two people were killed and more than 20 injured...... Qin said China was ``greatly shocked,'' by the bombing. ``We strongly condemn NATO's act and will express our indignation. NATO's barbarian act is a gross violation of the United Nations Charter, international law and the norms governing international relations,'' Qin said. He warned that NATO would bear responsibility for the consequences of the blast, and he called on NATO to stop the bombing. China has consistently voiced strong opposition to the NATO attacks, saying they were launched without authorization of the council and violate international law...."
Press Association (U.K.) 5/8/99 "...Britain is to use an emergency session of the UN Security Council to try to persuade China that its embassy in Belgrade had not been bombed deliberately, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said. At least three people are reported to have been killed in the incident. "We will most certainly be seeking to convince the Chinese that there was no possibility, no question of deliberately targeting their embassy," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "Indeed, the target was elsewhere and was a legitimate military target," he said, adding that although he did not have full details he understood the alliance had been targeting a hotel used by indicted war criminal and paramilitary leader Arkan...."
AFP via Babelfish 5/8/99 "...More than 2.000 Chinese expressed by throwing stones Saturday against the embassy from the United States in Peking, under the glance of the police force, after the bombardment by NATO in the night of the embassy from China in Belgrade which made at least three died. The demonstrators, for the majority of the well organized students, encircled the vast complex sheltering the American embassy. They threw stones and bottles out of plastic against the building. " the United States is assassins ", shouted the crowd of demonstrators, whereas a hundred police officers were held close to the procession without intervening. On banners one could read: " NATO, Nazis " and " the United States, go to the devil ". ..."
Reuters 5/8/99 Benjamin Kang Lim Freeper starlu "...Angry students, chanting and waving banners, burned a U.S. flag outside the American embassy in Beijing Saturday during a mass demonstration against NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Students and onlookers cheered and clapped as the Stars and Stripes went up in flames outside the main embassy gates, and hurled empty plastic bottles, tomatoes and other debris over the compound's iron fence..."
USA TODAY 5/8/99 AP "...Several thousand students marched Saturday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to protest the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, while the government accused NATO of a ''barbarian act.''.... A cheer of ''Hao,'' meaning ''Bravo,'' went up whenever a plastic water bottle or piece of pavement landed on the Embassy building. Police joined hands in a chain to block the embassy gate. Some of the protesters sang the Chinese national anthem, and others shouted ''Protect sovereignty, protect peace,'' and ''We don't want war.'' Signs hung on a bus that brought students to the embassy said ''Nato Nazis.'' Some police applauded the students when they sang the national anthem ....The protest was highly unusual for China, where authorities generally have banned any large gatherings or demonstrations for fear of unrest. Demonstrators said they had asked school authorities for permission to march, and it had been granted....Several hundred people with banners also demonstrated outside the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, and several dozen protested in Hong Kong....."
5/8/99 CNN "....The protesters pushed toward the embassy, demanding to be let in and calling U.S. President Bill Clinton obscene names, CNN's Beijing Bureau Chief Rebecca MacKinnon said. Police pushed back demonstrators who tried to ram a van and hurl a burning American flag through the embassy gate. Protesters used pieces of concrete that had been left in piles by workers rebuilding sidewalks to break many of the windows in U.S. Embassy buildings. A group of protesters tried to flip a car and started shoving police who stopped them. Several cars were smashed with chunks of concrete...."

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990508.SC6674.html 5/8/99 UN Security Council "...QIN HUASUN (China) read a statement from the Chinese Government that said that at midnight of 7 May, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States, flagrantly attacked the Embassy of China with three missiles from different angles and caused serious damage. Two people had died, two were missing and many were injured. Flagrant bombing by NATO, led by the United States, had already caused enormous casualties and now it had gone so far as to bomb the Chinese Embassy. That was a violation of the sovereignty of China, and of the basic norms of international relations. China expressed the utmost indignation and severe condemnation of this barbaric activity. It made the strongest protest. NATO, headed by the United States, must assume the responsibility. China reserved the right to take further measures. The working buildings and the residence of the Embassy in Yugoslavia -- indeed the whole Embassy from the fifth floor to the basement -- had been destroyed, he said. All Embassy staff had either been sent to hospital for treatment or had been withdrawn to hotels. That was a serious incident and deserved the utmost indignation and the strongest condemnation. Even in times of war, it was recognized that diplomatic institutes should not be violated and diplomats should be protected. Violation of those principles was a serious threat to the maintenance of necessary and normal international relations. The indiscriminate attack constituted a serious breach of international conventions. It was a crime of war and should be punished. China demanded a NATO investigation of the incident and that NATO account for it. The frenzied bombardment by NATO, led by the United States, of Yugoslavia over the last 45 days had resulted in civilian casualties. It had now violated a mission. This was shocking. NATO should stop the air strikes immediately and unconditionally....Mr. QIN (China) said he had followed the comments by Council members and others closely. He thanked representatives for their expressions of sympathy and condolences. However, he had also heard the absurd argument expressed that NATO did not intentionally bomb the Embassy and therefore it could not be charged with contravening the convention on diplomatic protection. It was astonishing that a senior diplomat would say this. Facts spoke louder than words. Whether deliberate or not, this was a blatant transgression of international law. He reiterated that NATO must shoulder all responsibility for its actions. He also informed the Council that China had distributed a draft presidential statement on the situation, and it hoped there would be early action on this draft...