May 8, 1999
DIPLOMACY
U.S. Tries to Limit Policy Damage From Bombing of China Embassy
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By JANE PERLEZ
ASHINGTON -- The Clinton Administration struggled on Saturday
to prevent the accidental bombing of
the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade
from either hobbling NATO's air
campaign or stifling the nascent diplomatic search for a way to end the
war over Kosovo.
The White House said the American Ambassador in Beijing, James
Sasser, had apologized to the Chinese
Government and would continue to
provide Chinese officials with information on how the accident happened.
In an attempt to show sympathy
with China, Administration officials
said NATO would guarantee safe
passage for a Chinese plane being
sent to Belgrade to evacuate embassy staff members.
The attack against the Chinese
Embassy came just as the diplomatic process to end the Kosovo war had
begun to gather steam, raising concerns that the efforts could stall,
particularly at the United Nations
Security Council, where China is a
permanent member.
The Western allies are banking on
Russia's and China's support for a
Security Council resolution to authorize an international security force
in Kosovo.
Administration and NATO officials expressed confidence that the
emotional outpourings in Beijing, in
Moscow and at the United Nations,
where China called an emergency
session that lasted hours past midnight today, would be short-lived.
They even suggested that the accident might actually add urgency to
the diplomatic efforts.
"We will just have to ride it out," a
senior Administration official said.
"Everyone recognizes this is an unfortunate development."
The official said the Administration had prepared itself for more
civilian casualties and mistaken hits
as the price of a more expanded air
campaign, but had not counted on
hitting the embassy of a key Security
Council member. There was little
doubt that the NATO military planners would take extreme caution in
the coming days about their targeting, the official said.
Officials from the United States
and other NATO countries said they
were prepared for some days of anger over the incident but argued that
since a United Nations resolution on
the security force was at least some
weeks away, the accident need not
affect the final vote. It was unlikely,
they said, that if Russia backed a
resolution, China would stand alone
and veto it.
"We believe there is broad agreement to the contours of a settlement
and that the Chinese would not block
it," a spokesman for the National
security Council, David Leavy, said.
The national security adviser,
Samuel R. Berger, met with the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi
Annan, at the White House today.
Leavy said Berger had expressed regret but had vowed that
the air campaign would go on. Before
the meeting, Annan, speaking to
reporters briefly in Washington before addressing graduates at the
Howard University commencement,
said he was "rather shocked" about
the damage to the embassy.
"This is a reason for continuing
peace talks," he said. "I hope it will
not unduly complicate our search for
peace."
But he added, "Obviously it is not
going to make matters easy." The
Pentagon said today that the accidental bombing of the embassy
would not affect the basic direction
of its air campaign. There will be no
pauses in the bombing, said the Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon,
nor will NATO give advance warning
of its targets to neutral parties.
"NATO is determined to continue
this campaign and to intensify the
campaign," Bacon said. "I don't
anticipate there will be a pause. In
fact, I see that there will be broadening attacks as NATO continues to
work toward its goals."
The round-the-clock air campaign
has grown to include around 600 missions daily.
In a step toward a diplomatic solution, the Russians agreed with the
Western allies on Thursday that a
security force was necessary in Kosovo to guarantee the return of the
ethnic Albanian refugees.
There are still considerable gaps
between Russia and the allies on the
composition of the force, and today
Administration officials said they
doubted that the embassy incident
would fundamentally affect those
discussions.
It was possible, a NATO official
said, that the attack could weaken
the hand of the allies a little as they
bargained with the Russians on the
composition of the force, which presumably will enter Kosovo with the
assent of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.
But overall, this official said, the
attack should "encourage the Russians to be more forthright in sorting
out the problems and encourage the
Russians to lean on Milosevic."
The NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, called the bombing of
the embassy "a tragic mistake." Apparently determined to show that it
would not deflect attention from the
military campaign, NATO and Administration officials stressed today
the successful hits in Belgrade on
Friday night, including a bunker
complex they said was used by
Milosevic.
Solana said in a statement in
Brussels that NATO would continue
its military campaign and at the
same time back the diplomatic
track.
"NATO is prepared to suspend its
air strikes once Belgrade has unequivocally accepted the five key
conditions set down by the North
Atlantic Council for a peaceful settlement of the conflict," Solana
said.
"NATO will continue to support
all attempts at a diplomatic solution
which respect these conditions."
While publicly confident that the
attack on the embassy would not
have a lasting impact on their diplomatic efforts, the Administration appeared to be doing what it could to
mollify the Chinese.
Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright was trying to call the Chinese Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, to express her sympathy, a
State Department spokesman said.
President Clinton, inspecting tornado damage in Oklahoma, has not
been involved in talking to the Chinese, a White House spokesman said.
He was expected, however, to comment on the bombing later today.
Despite the outward confidence,
the strike against the Chinese Embassy comes as relations between
Washington and Beijing have soured
over a number of issues. The Chinese
have been very critical of the NATO
assaults against Yugoslavia, largely
because they fear that a precedent is
being set that could allow interference in Tibet. Trade disputes and
allegations of Chinese espionage
have complicated relations further.
The Chinese showed earlier this
year how they can wield their diplomatic weight when they vetoed a
Security Council resolution to extend
the mandate for a United Nations
peacekeeping operation in Macedonia. The veto was an expression of
China's anger at Macedonia's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.
At an emergency session of the
Security Council called by the Chinese at midnight on Friday night,
emotions ran high. After hours in
closed-door session, the Council expressed "shock and concern" over
casualties at the embassy. In an open
session, China and Russia condemned NATO.
China called the strike a "war
crime." The Russian delegate to the
United Nations, Sergei V. Lavrov,
accused NATO of trying to "destroy
world order."
The United States has not had an
chief delegate ambassador to the
United Nations since last summer.
Its representative, Peter Burleigh,
apologized to the Council for the mistaken attack and urged Council
members to keep 'the big picture' in
mind as the United Nations became
a forum for seeking a diplomatic end
to the war.
In Moscow, President Boris N. Yeltsin called on NATO to end the bombing and said the attack on the embassy was a "gross violation of international law."
He ordered his Foreign Minister,
Igor S. Ivanov, to cancel a long-planned trip to visit the British Foreign Minister, Robin Cook, at his
country home over the weekend.
But after speaking with
Ivanov by telephone, Cook
played down the cancellation, saying
the Russian minister remained supportive of the principles set out on
Thursday in Germany by the Western allies and Russia to end the war.
The bombing did not curtail the
diplomatic efforts of Russia's special
envoy for the Balkans, Viktor S.
Chernomyrdin, who arrived in Germany today from Moscow to meet
with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
As the NATO allies expressed regret, there was heightened criticism
of NATO in other parts of the world.
In New Delhi, the Indian Government said the continued air campaign contributed to greater instability in the Balkans.
