CHINA-US: MAY 7 MARKS THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE "MISTAKEN" TARGETING OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY IN BELGRADE BY U.S. MISSILES

7 May marks the anniversary of the "mistaken" targeting of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, the capital of erstwhile Yugoslavia when 3 Chinese journalists (2 of Guangming daily and 1 of Xinhua) were killed and 20 injured. China received US$ 28m in compensation from the US for the bombing, but had to return almost US$ 3m for the damage to US diplomatic property in Beijing and elsewhere caused by the protests. . The US paid another $4.5m to the families of the dead and injured.

(Comment: Interesting is the journalist's account published by BBC News from Belgrade on May 7, 2019, that on the day of the bombing, Dusan Janjic, an academic and advocate for ethnic reconciliation in Yugoslavia, was having lunch at an upscale restaurant in central Belgrade with a man he considered a good friend. Ren Baokai was the military attaché at the Chinese embassy and Janjic said he was surprisingly open with him about the fact that China was spying on Nato and US operations and tracking warplanes from its Belgrade outpost. The attaché invited him to dinner at the embassy that night because he knew he liked Chinese food. Janjic was quoted as recalling "Come on, you're going to be bombed! I'm not coming!" Janjic couldn't make it to dinner and that evening, when the missiles flew into the building, Ren Baokai was thrown to the ceiling by the blast and then fell through a crater left by a bomb. He was found in the basement in a coma only the next morning.)






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