United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

5 min readFeb 15, 2022

On May 7, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (Operation Allied Force), five U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs hit the People’s Republic of China embassy in the Belgrade district of New Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and outraging the Chinese public.[2] According to the U.S. government, the intention had been to bomb the nearby Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP). President Bill Clinton apologized for the bombing stating it was an accident.[3][4][5] Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet testified before a congressional committee that the bombing was the only one in the campaign organized and directed by his agency,[6] and that the CIA had identified the wrong coordinates for a Yugoslav military target on the same street.[7] The Chinese government issued a statement on the day of the bombing, stating that it was a “barbarian act”.[8]

In October 1999, five months after the bombing, The Observer[a] of London along with Politiken of Copenhagen, published the results of an investigation citing anonymous sources which said that the bombing had actually been deliberate as the Embassy was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.[9][10] The governments of both the U.S. and the U.K. emphatically denied it was deliberate with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calling the story “balderdash” and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook saying there was “not a single shred of evidence” to support it.[11] In April 2000 The New York Times published the results of its own investigation for which, “the investigation produced no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act.”[12]

Right after the bombing most Chinese believed it was deliberate and many continue to believe that it was deliberate;[13] however, in the results from structured interviews conducted in 2002, of the 57% of Chinese Sino-American relations experts who believed that the bombing was deliberate, 87.5% did not suspect President Clinton’s involvement.[14]

In August 1999 the United States agreed to compensate the victims of the bombing and their families.[15] In December 1999 the United States agreed to pay China for the damage to the embassy and China agreed to compensation to the United States for damage to U.S. property that occurred during the demonstrations.[16][17][18]

In May 2000 a major U.S.-China trade bill passed the United States House of Representatives which became the United States–China Relations Act of 2000[19] integrating with China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.[20][21][22] By June 2000, during a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, both sides said that relations between them had improved.[23]

1Sequence of events
2Chinese reaction
2.1Settlement
3Official investigation and reporting in the aftermath
3.1Official State Department account
3.2George Tenet’s statement
3.3Repercussions for CIA employees responsible
3.4Chinese reaction
4The Observer/Politiken report
4.1Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) posts on lack of U.S. media coverage
4.2Salon interview with William M. Arkin
4.3Wreckage of shot down F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter
4.4The Sunday Times report of an unpublished memoir by Jiang Zemin
5International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) investigation
6Amnesty International report
7Aftermath
7.1Future of the location
7.2Rise of anti-Western sentiment and warming of China-Russia relations
8See also
9Notes
10References
11External links

Sequence of events[edit]

In the days prior to the bombing, an attack folder labelled “Belgrade Warehouse 1” was circulated for command approval. The folder originated within the CIA and described the target as a warehouse for a Yugoslav government agency suspected of arms proliferation activities. In this form, the strike was approved by President Clinton.[24]

It is unclear if other NATO leaders approved the strike. A report by the French Ministry of Defense after the war stated that “part of the military operations were conducted by the United States outside the strict framework of NATO”[25] and that a dual-track command structure existed. NATO had no authority to use any B-2 stealth bomber which was used to carry out the strike.[25] That the United States was running missions outside of NATO’s joint command structure was a source of some contention between the U.S. and NATO allies, especially France.[26]

United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

Contents

Sequence of events[edit]

Written by Caxec